Welcome
Director Randy Kurohara, County of Hawai‘i Department of Research and Development
I’d like to echo what Mayor Kenoi said last night, both what he said about how lucky we all are to live on this beautiful island and what he said about the collective effort necessary for us to change course. We do need to change our mind set. For years we have been credit happy and resource wasteful. Now we have to shift our mind sets to rethink how we use resources in order to make the right decisions in the long run.
About 20 years ago, when I first came back home to the island after graduating from college, I used to go surfing at Honoliʻi Bay north of Hilo. At that time a hydroelectric plant was proposed for development upstream of this popular surf spot. My fellow surfers and I protested this development, we testified before the Board of Land and Natural Resources, and we actually helped to stop this project from being developed. I still remember the title of the story in the Hawaiʻi Tribune-Herald: “Surfer Power.”
The point is that we don’t have all the answers in the County government. We need to look to leaders in the community to guide us, leaders like those affiliated with The Kohala Center and the people here at this Summit. We need to do this in order to pass on to our children a better Hawaiʻi Island than we have today, a more sustainable island. As Mayor Kenoi frequently says, “It’s not a matter of can, but of how can?”