On Friday, May 9th, in a powerful defense of Hawai‘i’s environment, cultural heritage, Hawaiian rights and public lands, the state’s Board of Land and Natural Resources voted to reject the U.S. Army’s final environmental impact statement for its proposed “retention” of up to 22,750 acres of state-owned land it currently leases at Pōhakuloa Training Area on Hawai‘i Island.

The area is a U.S. military training base located in the high plateau between Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea and Hualālai. It spans more than 132,000 acres, making it the largest U.S. Department of Defense installation in the islands.

The board’s rejection effectively halts the Army’s attempt to secure a new lease, for now. Under Hawai‘i law, the Army must resubmit a revised statement that addresses the board’s concerns by including necessary environmental and cultural reviews and satisfactorily responding to public and agency comments submitted on prior drafts, among other requirements.

“This decision is a win for truth, for science and for the people of Hawai‘i,” said Maxx Phillips, Hawai‘i and Pacific Islands director and staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The board saw through the Army’s hollow promises and recognized that you can’t make informed decisions about protecting endangered species, sacred sites or clean water when you refuse to even do baseline surveys. This vote is a powerful affirmation that the future of these lands must be decided with integrity, not rubber-stamped based on incomplete and misleading information.”

For more than 75 years the military has used the 23,000 acres of state lands within the training area for military exercises, despite the lands’ designation as a conservation district, status as “ceded” (lands acquired through the unlawful overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom) and cultural significance to Native Hawaiians. The current 65-year lease between the state and the Army is expiring in 2029 and the Army is proposing to either renew the lease or acquire the fee interest in these lands. Under Hawaiʻi law, the environmental statement is a required first step before the state can decide on the Army’s proposal.

“The board’s decision upholds its constitutional and fiduciary obligations to native Hawaiians and the general public, including both present and future generations,” said Wayne Chung Tanaka, director of Sierra Club of Hawai‘i. “Pōhakuloa has been bombed, burned and polluted for over six decades — and we now have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to finally say no more to such abuse of our ‘āina. Today’s rejection of the final environmental impact statement gives us a fighting chance to restore and protect this sacred place.”

The decision follows decades of public outcry, expert legal and scientific critiques, and formal opposition from conservation groups, cultural practitioners and Native Hawaiian organizations to military activities. These destructive activities include live-fire exercises that have desecrated historic cultural sites, destroyed endangered species habitat, sparked more than 1,000 wildfires and left the landscape littered with everything from unexploded ordnance to depleted uranium shells. The Army’s final environmental impact statement was widely criticized as legally inadequate and scientifically unsound, lacking critical biological, cultural and environmental assessments for lands that have been degraded by decades of military training.

“This decision reflects well established Hawaiʻi law that prioritizes the health of Hawaiʻi lands and Native Hawaiian cultural practices over military convenience,” said Ashley Obrey, senior staff attorney at the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation. “The state has a legal duty to honor the public trust and the rights of kānaka maoli. We commend the board members for standing firm and refusing to accept a document that would have paved the way for another generation of harm to these ʻāina.”

The Army’s proposed lease extension was found to omit key environmental and cultural information including surveys for endangered species and Native Hawaiian burials and archaeological sites in large portions of the proposed lease area.

The Army also failed to evaluate contamination risks to groundwater, provide an enforceable wildfire mitigation plan or meaningfully assess cultural access and consultation obligations. Moreover, it omitted entirely any analysis of the secondary impacts to adjacent federal lands that would result from the Army’s “retention” of the state lands at issue, which is a key requirement of Hawaiʻi’s environmental impact statement law.

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This content is a joint release by the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, Center for Biological Diversity, and Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.8 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

Founded in 1974, the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation is a nonprofit legal services organization dedicated to protecting and advancing Native Hawaiian identity and culture.

Formed in 1968, the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi has over 20,000 members and supporters working throughout the islands to stop climate change, ensure climate justice for all, and protect Hawaiʻi’s unique natural resources. The Sierra Club is the largest, oldest environmental organization in the U.S. We rely on volunteers to support outdoor education programs, trail and native species restoration projects, and grassroots advocacy for sound environmental policies.

The press may contact these organizations regarding this matter using the following information:

• Maxx Phillips, Center for Biological Diversity, (808) 284-0007, mphillips@biologicaldiversity.org
• Wayne Chung Tanaka, Sierra Club of Hawai‘i, (808) 490-8579, wayne.tanaka@sierraclub.org
• Ashley Obrey, Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, (808) 521-2302, info@nhlchi.org