PROJECT GREENSTREAM
WHERE SELF-RELIANCE IS A STREAM OF GREEN CONNECTIVITY
A Strategy for
North Kohala Green Economic Development CDP action group
and the SUKA Green Readiness Planning Group
Premise: North Kohala is very close to being a protoype of the Earth’s best chance at a model green global village community. We lack green infrastructure and the ag business development we need to get our community over the top. Ideally the stream of green resources will move through our entire district with everyone in the picture in a dynamic way. Strategically, with the right appeal we could get a dozen angel investors who are also future citizens to bolster up our food production support system and take us into the zone of self-reliance and still have all the charm and micro-politan features we already have in place for a world class place to live.
Such a group once recruited would build upon a community base of existence that is very rich across the board and has one of the most diverse and interesting landscape and population foundations on the globe. We are already very global but we are not yet self-reliant. We have a very pristine set up and yet we do not hold the keys to our future and we do not imagine we have the home rule we need to be in control of our destiny. But we are so close to both and the county is not in our way. They also year after year never have the economic resources to help out anyway. They know they cannot economically support us so they are simply not going to impede whatever we decide to do. We are going to have to muster that resource up ourselves.
Fortunately we are infinitely attractive as a place for twelve new families to come and live. While at the same time they could kick start the key small businesses we need to build the support infrastructure we need. The right story and the right identification of support systems is how to begin. This is no different than the economic development that has occurred already in many small communities across the nation.
Ou r appeal is that we have the traditional town look with a much intact sense of place and common architecture. We have a mainstreet merchant business that is infinitely attractive for short visitor stays. We have an ethnic diversity that has already integrated itself from both Atlantic and Pacific origins …it is truly global and more importantly is mostly broken into functioning ohana’s. We have a pristine land base with forests, valleys, green hillsides, and ocean front that are not over-developed and still ready for more carefully designed local/visitor experiences. We have a workforce that is ready and willing to both ranch, farm, and craft art if the product lines are supported by an ag park with wood mill that can handle and process excess and target markets on the island and beyond. They also have a base of experience in entertainment and hospitality.
We have an airport that is available for a small fleet of private planes and a conference facility. We have a coastline preservation effort with a good track record. We have a hip set of towns that have desirable amenities for entertainment, recreation, great food, health wellness and the arts. We have 15 restaurants, 15 galleries, and 30 homestays to support a steady but not large tourist industry. We have a historic heritage of King Kamehameha to source our community sense of pride and deep culture. He created a food support base that launched his and other armies out ward for unification. We have a destiny of starting things first.
We have over a hundred healers waiting for their network to be activated and serve our needs for visitor health and wellness and help us during any emergency. We have the roots of an emergency response network and the character of Aloha that will bolster our survival in hardtimes. We have a select group of global players here now who have the organizational acumen to refine our self-reliance and boost the quality of life as needed. We can access the right builders who can see that select new residents get the green homesteads they need and the local support to handle small business opportunity for the 100 new 20 acre parcels that are going up for sale and will need up to 24 new development skillsets to be created and maintained so our young people will have independent small businesses.
The secret to the strategy here is to prepare these strengths into a simple business and living case and go out and get the twelve new players we need using the world wide web to do the search.
The notional core support systems are as follows in some order of priority. We cab call them the big twelve:
THE BIG TWELVE
A Kohala Water Company that provides world class “charged water” for drinking and supervises ag water systems so they are equally distributed for small farms and our people. It is not tied to diesel engine based pumping, manages the ditch use, produces some hydro-power, serves the small farms, and has public water outlets for emergencies.
A Kohala planning council with building where our visions, our strategies are in plain view and not subject to the mush pot of large detailed documents or at the mercy of county rule without economic support. This is a survival imperative it should not be subject to politics. It can be manned by volunteers with some support by grants. This office would also see that our visionary images and development strategy is projected in the right way to our people and the world.
A kohala Ag park (investor on board) with adequate support for all light industries like farming, building, and crafts. It will have a commercial kitchen, extra cold storage, packaging, cleaning, dehydration, charged water plant, special energy fuels, business dev and tax support for local farmers, and a recycling and surplus materials shop area. Also for the builders and artisans there will be a wood mill facility with the larger support equipment needed to help with special processes. The sawdust would recycle into soil supplements.
A Kohala transfer station annex that includes a nearby recycling area close to the ag park that recycles, the new, slightly used, well used, volatile, green waste, paper/cardboard, white goods and the like. Its primary support system will be a grinder that organizes all waste stream items that can support farm and building development with simple pick-up loops for local use. Tires and other reusable building materials will also be stock yarded with a loader for serious reuse for building. Six thousand tires a year can do a lot.
A Kohala Green Marketplace with exchange and booth sales. Saturday and eventually daily marketplace venues will be supported with rain protected and traditional natural structures that allow local gardeners, artisans, cooks, and yard sale drive up trucks access to the exchange. Tents near the Banyans … a pick-up back-up zone, and restored buildings in a Lahaina pattern around the edges. Ample seating is needed to collect discussions, a small bandstand for musicians, and playpen so parents can shop and visit.
A subscription farm pick-up zone for both vegetables and beef items that could be collocated near the transfer station annex or ag park. This needs a broker mentality.
The light industrial area (union mill) now housing a variety of services like warehouse sized buildings and heavy equipment support can be used to house more support services that include more toxic waste. The area already has been compromised but is fine for heavy equipment and other non-ag support services.
A small visitor center with bathrooms and activities kiosk and small museum (new Zealand style) could be located near the new off road tours passed Kapa au so the visitors must pass by main street to get there. This will direct people to the wild life center and other appropriate attractions. It can organize woofers who come to enjoy our amenities and help at harvest time. It will also network the healer services with a community spa and rejuvination center.
A teen recreation zone A Skate park facility which also supports a Hula Halau and kids dance area w/games area just across form the near the intergenerational center. The skate facility where much has been planned is the structure we need for the other venues.
The intergenerational center with a green training zone and emergency support co-ordination office that includes triage tentage, cooking items, first aid trailer, CERT training, and alternative communication training (short wave) system.
A local transportation company with electric cabs, small buses and charming rides and boat rides along the valley coast. Support for a renewed fishing system would help.
Notice that the twelve items vary in the support needed
Local foraging areas co-ord center. It will be part time to organize community fruit tree planting in all accessible zones donated by community. Kids and natural guard units can provide the biggest assist. Could be an intergenerational center job.
The independent private school track with green action curriculum. The preschool thru high school concepts are in place conceptually and people have signed up to help.
End of social architecture draft plan.
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The priorities for a Kohala and SUKA with real green readiness are:
Reinforce the aloha that already exists until our confidence in our cooperative style is impregnable. WE HAVE THE ALOHA TO DO ANYTHING TOGETHER. This is a full on PR and talk-story campaign. If the teamwork holds in the early days we can “all” make it especially if everyone has sixty days food on hand.
Support the GREENSTREAM DEVELOPMENT PLAN reviewed above for the longer range. Be the planning group from SUKA that interfaces with the CDP action group.
Make a film of the solutions already in Kohala SHINE THE LIGHT ON THE LOCAL SOLUTIONS…the green leaders film.
Get people to OUR GREEN WEBSITES …the curriculum is available but the word is not out.
Gardens are OK for the short run but the green infrastructure is the key for future generations. The self-reliance problems will get worse not better.
Jim Channon
jim@arcturus.org
896-1023
social architect
