HR132

WHEREAS, the people of Hawaii have an important relationship with nature and have called on their local, state, and federal governments to preserve and protect nature within the State of Hawaii and across the United States; and

WHEREAS, Hawaii is the home of species and habitats that hold great ecological, spiritual, cultural, historic, economic, and scientific value to the people of Hawaii and need to be protected now and for future generations; and

WHEREAS, Hawaii and the United States face an unprecedented biodiversity crisis, largely driven by irresponsible resource management that is significantly damaging the Earth's ecosystems by altering seventy-five percent of the area of terrestrial environments and sixty-six percent of marine environments; directly exploiting wildlife and plant species; accelerating climate change, directly harming nature, and exacerbating other threats; polluting air, land, and water; and introducing invasive species; and

WHEREAS, irresponsible resource management threatens approximately one million species with extinction in the coming decades, including over forty percent of amphibians; thirty-three percent of corals, sharks, shark relatives, and marine mammals; over sixty percent of cycads; over thirty percent of conifer trees; and about ten percent of more than five million insect species; and

WHEREAS, irresponsible resource management is also causing the population sizes of wild species to decline by an average of sixty-eight percent for mammals; and

WHEREAS, Hawaii is home to over five hundred fifty endangered species, or approximately twenty-five percent of the nation's endangered species, yet receives only approximately three percent of the federal funds available to mālama these species; and

WHEREAS, 71.4 percent of Hawaii's residents strongly agree that it is important to take steps to prevent the extinction of endangered species; and

WHEREAS, the decline of biodiversity presents a direct threat to the security, health, and well-being of the people of the Hawaii through the loss of benefits including valuable ecosystem activities, such as zoonotic disease buffering, pollination, water filtration, soil replenishment, and provision of game species, medicinal products, and recreational opportunities; and

WHEREAS, for Native Hawaiians, the relationship with the land and native ecosystems is integral to cultural identity, sovereignty, and sense of well-being, and Native Hawaiian culture and knowledge offer unique perspectives and traditional ecological knowledge critical to preserving biodiversity; and

WHEREAS, the decline of biodiversity disproportionately affects Native Hawaiian communities due to the genealogical relationships between Kānaka Maoli and ‘āina; and

WHEREAS, the Governor has signed the Hawai‘i Commitments at the International Union for Conservation of Nature World Conservation Congress, which honors the interrelated nature of indigenous people and biodiversity; and

WHEREAS, the Governor has also signed into law legislation that pledges to make the State fully carbon-neutral by 2045; and

WHEREAS, protecting Hawaii's biodiversity will effectively mitigate carbon emissions by absorbing excess flood water and buffering the State against coastal erosion or extreme weather events; and

WHEREAS, the United States is not a party to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on Migratory Species, and other relevant international agreements; does not issue a national biodiversity outlook, in contrast to most other nations; and does not have a national biodiversity strategy as part of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services; and

WHEREAS, addressing the biodiversity crisis requires coordination at a global, national, regional, and local scale, and there is currently no coordinating policy to maximize the effectiveness of the federal government's conservation efforts and collaboration with the states, local governments, native peoples, private landowners, and other nongovernmental stakeholders; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Thirty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2022, that the federal government is urged to develop a national biodiversity strategy; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the federal government is urged to:

(1) Ensure the conservation and restoration of the United States' biodiversity through the development of this national biodiversity strategy;

(2) Secure and restore the ecosystem activities provided by nature for current and future generations;

(3) Deliver on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals;

(4) Set ambitious yet necessary goals for protecting biodiversity in the coming decades;

(5) Promote social equity and justice in the conservation of the nation's biodiversity;

(6) Coordinate the actions of federal agencies to advance the conservation of biodiversity;

(7) Promote collaboration among the federal, state, local, and tribal governments; nongovernmental stakeholders; civil society; and other nations to advance conservation;

(8) Honor federal trust obligations to Native Americans, Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiians, and tribal nations;

(9) Provide global leadership in addressing the biodiversity crisis;

(10) Improve the resilience of biodiversity and continue to provide benefits to Hawaii's people and economy;

(11) Take effective action on the local stressors that can be controlled, including sediment and nutrient runoff from land, invasive species, and unsustainable harvesting;

(12) Raise issues surrounding biodiversity known to the public; and

(13) Develop the national biodiversity strategy with significant public input and in collaboration and coordination with federal and state agencies, indigenous communities, communities of color, low-income communities, private landowners, and other non-governmental stakeholders to leverage biodiversity restoration efforts; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the national biodiversity strategy should include direction on:

(1) Supporting the national goal of conserving at least thirty percent of United States lands and waters to protect biodiversity by 2030;

(2) Setting other goals necessary to reduce the threats to biodiversity based on the best available scientific information;

(3) Taking action to protect threatened, endangered, and at-risk species from further imperilment or extinction;

(4) Reviewing existing laws, plans, programs, and strategies that are relevant to addressing threats to biodiversity to assess how they can contribute to the objectives of this measure; and

(5) As necessary, recommend new laws, plans, programs, and strategies, and fund existing conservation programs and develop new funding sources; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the President of the United States, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Minority Leader of the United House of Representatives, Majority Leader of the United States Senate, Minority Leader of the United States Senate, and each member of Hawaii's Congressional delegation.

	OFFERED BY:	_____________________________

Report Title:

Federal Government; National Biodiversity Strategy

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.R. NO.	132
THIRTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2022
STATE OF HAWAII