Community group responds to Molokai Ranch closing with a proposal for the future

A 29-page report titled “Molokai: Future of a Hawaiian Island” is ready to be released by a community group that has met weekly since the announcement of the Molokai Ranch’s closing.

Adam T. Kahualaulani Mick, who helped prepare the draft, said at a meeting last Wednesday night at Kulana ‘Oiwi that the report should be in its final form in a couple of days. The report represents a distillation of numerous planning documents that have been prepared over the years. Mick characterized the final report as a “living document” that will remain flexible to meet the needs of the island.

Prominent local activist Walter Ritte, the de facto leader of this unnamed community group, provided an overview of the efforts so far. Ritte led the A‘ole La‘au group in its opposition to the Molokai Ranch plan for luxury home development on Molokai’s southwest shore. In Molokai Ranch’s only public statement, the company cited the “continued opposition to every aspect of the Master Plan” as the reason for the April 5 shut down.

Ritte briefly reviewed the events that led to Molokai Ranch shutting down all its operations on April 5. The “sticking point” as it relates to the La‘au development was unresolved issues about water, said Ritte. “We tried to work through these for a couple of years but it didn’t work.”

In describing the transition the island is going through, Ritte said, “nerves are raw, people are touchy about these issues … A lot of people are working hard to decide where we’re going to go.”

The report represents 40 years of planning, said Ritte. “There was a lot of looking backward and forward. This represents where we want to go with this island.”

Ritte spent time explaining the proposed Aha Moku system of governance. It is a traditional Hawaiian resource management system that creates governing areas along the vertical ahupua‘a areas. Representatives from each ahupua‘a join to make a decision-making moku, or district.

The report features chapters headed: overall objectives, cultural plan, education, agriculture/aquaculture, environment, subsistence, tourism and governance. Three appendices are titled “proposed Molokai projects,” “Identifying subsistence practices,” and “overview.” It also includes a map and a bibliography.

It is still not clear how this group plans to publish and distribute the document. Some discussion was given to production costs and a suggestion was made to publish the document online.

Seventeen people were present at the meeting including Loretta Ritte, Moke Kim, Joe Kennedy, DeGray Vanderbilt, Victoria Kapuni and Bill Umi.