Very cool.  I pray for more prosperous times for the Robinsons, their lands, and tenants.

Gordon, if ag fields are left fallow, they will usually grow in quickly with “weeds” which hold soil, encourage ground water infiltration, discourage evaporation & erosion, and rebuild soil profiles.  A fallow period will only increase soil productivity for future ag endeavors and hold soil that usually is left bare between crops.  Expect less silt runoff from ag lands, not more.  Degraded watersheds are another matter but Robinson lands are Robinsons’ business.  Why Butt in?  There are plenty other places (both public and private) to preserve native ecosystems and repair watershed function.

Archie, that backpack with herbicide is the most economically efficient method of controlling weeds.  Would you rather he spend days pulling the same weeds that took an hour to spray?  Such inefficiency would take time away from other needs.  To have success in conservation, you must be practical and efficient.  I trust Keith Robinson to use herbicides responsibly around his rare plants.

Where does anybody have the supreme right to use mere constructs such as money that are of dubious value anyway to obtain rights of land?  It’s all an illusion exerted by power and an abomination of fundamental freedom.
If it wasn’t for genocide and fear then this idea of personal property wouldn’t exist.  So many sins and abuses have resulted.
This man wants us to imagine him as a victim when he probably believes this island exists because of him.  Just as guilty is this corrupt and pitiful excuse of government that destroys or exploits anything that is natural.
Just as the idea that Cook “discovered” the islands is a lie when they already existed and were better off if not for the encroachment of outside exploitation.  Natural environments do well without the interference of either.

Our drive to Waimea yesterday was spent behind a raw sugar delivery truck on its way back from a Nawiliwili drop-off, spewing noxious diesel exhaust until it turned off into one of the soon to be abandoned cane fields of Gay and Robinson.

As we drove through the cross hatching of soon to be harvested and already barren fields destined for abandonment it was hard not to imagine what the next 10 years will reap if the paths of the rest of the abandoned cane fields from Kilauea to Kalaheo is the same for the G&R;- massive runoff for the next few years, fouling reefs with chemically poisoned dirt as each heavy downpour washes away what’s left of top soil in waves of gooky mud.

It’s hard to cry about the last cane harvest on the island. All the good stuff of plantation life- idealized as it is ignoring the near slave-like conditions, plantation mentality and environmental degradation- hasn’t really existed for about 50 years now.

But for once, if we do it right, the aftermath doesn’t have to include the deposit of millions of cubic feet of soil in the ocean or leave ugly scarred land left to be a massive breeding ground for the spread of the invasive species that will accumulate if nothing is done now to stop it.

It’s time to put Keith Robinson’s title of “Mr. Environmentalist” to the acid test. Tinkering with native species is nice- for him. But if he really cares he’ll be remediating the land and restoring it as closely as possible to the condition his family found it in 120 years ago by nurturing a program growing and planting those native species he’s been propagating for years, stabilizing the land and letting it breath for a generation until it becomes living soil once again.

And then of course instead of turning it over to the frankenfood industry developing diversified ag-only, non residential lots to supply the food -and energy- the island needs in anticipation of the increasingly likely post-peak-oil day when “da boat no mo’ come”.

Perhaps he’ll even return the water to the streams and rivers from which it was stolen as the irrigation systems were put in place and restoring the native ecosystems that existed before G&R;tore up the place for King Cane.

No laugh, eh. It could happen.