Earlier this month, Maui was ravaged by a terrible firestorm — the worst in the island’s history — destroying habitats, leaving at least 115 dead, and even more survivors without homes. As the ash settles, the corporate press colludes in painting this tragedy as an unavoidable act of God, a natural disaster. But wildfires have not always been endemic to this former wetland environment. No — it’s the terraforming of colonizers and the insatiable greed of capitalists that has transformed this tropical paradise into a modern valley of Gehenna, hospitable only in the air-conditioned environments of billionaire’s estates and tourist’s resorts. “Miraculously,” it is this very type of land, the resorts and mansions of colonizers, that survived the inferno unscathed. Make no mistake about it: this is a man-made disaster. While the wind may be responsible for igniting the fuse, it is the actions of men that laid the powder.
This tragedy was caused by deforestation, the introduction of invasive grasses, and water usage policies. Its scale was further exacerbated by the corruption of local politicians, who failed to prepare for and respond to the fires, and that great engine of destruction that capitalists have built and fueled for so long, climate change, which has contributed to rising temperatures and prolonged droughts.
Forests — the native Sandalwood trees in particular — are integral to maintaining the natural rain cycle across Hawai’i by providing shade and by collecting water from the soil, filtering it, and then releasing it back into streams and rivers. But sandalwood isn’t just integral to Hawaiian ecology, it’s also a hot, hot commodity. After Captain James Cook arrived in Hawai’i in 1779, the island became integrated into the global market. Unsurprisingly, the country found itself in debt. At the same time, a market for sandalwood coincidentally opened in China, prompting disastrous logging. Soon thereafter, trade brought grazing animals, pests, and invasive plant species, which all contributed to the destruction of the local ecosystem. Then, with the support of the United States government, businessmen interested in land primarily for the sugar industry overthrew Queen Liliuokalani in 1893. Just five years later, Hawai’i was annexed as a US territory. Today, sandalwood logging remains a major commercial industry, contributing to the loss of more than 90% of Hawai’i’s dry forest coverage. But because the industry brings money into the coffers of statesmen who don’t represent the interests of the native Hawai’ians, conservationists have been unsuccessful in promoting change.
The opportunity for the state of Hawaii and the federal government to act keeps surfacing, but sadly there appears to be no political will to act. Hawaii, in general, is in an extinction crisis due to terrible land-use choices… In 2012, Hawaii Senate Resolution 93 (HI SR93) was passed to form a sandalwood task force to study the possible conservation and regulation of harvesting, but sadly no study or assessment has taken place due to lack of appropriated funds.
Big Island, Small Planet: Challenges and Failures in Conserving Hawaiian Sandalwood Trees
Wherever land opened due to deforestation, and wherever livestock were introduced, invasive grasses were imported to support the new grazing industry. According to a 1915 bulletin by the US Department of Agriculture:
The grazing industry is one of the important and profitable enterprises of Hawaii… Although in recent years there has arisen the problem of supplying feed during periods of long-continued drought… The development of the sugar industry has created a great demand for domestic animals for draft purposes and for food for the employees… It has been observed by many ranchmen that when animals graze on [native] Hilo grass there is a tendency toward this reduction in size and bone.
Big Island, Small Planet: Challenges and Failures in Conserving Hawaiian Sandalwood Trees
The settlement of capitalists, the raising of population thereby, the development of a market for sugar cane and meat, all these factors compelled the development of a system of production that took only one characteristic into consideration: the maximization of profit. The effect on the ecosystem? The effect on the local population? These were of no consequence. Damn the ecology, this was an economic wonder — the exploitation of the peripheral economies of the world. The immediate effects were two-fold. Escaped livestock further raised hell on the local ecosystem by trampling and consumption of native plants, uprooting the soil, and transporting non-native seeds. The bulletin continues:
Many domestic animals escaped, ran wild in the mountains, and there greatly increased in numbers. These wild animals became so destructive to the forests as seriously to threaten [sic] other industries which had developed… The question what [sic] feeds are consumed by cattle in the forests is of little importance… We are more interested in what cattle find to eat upon strictly grazing lands and as to what will form the bulk of the feed there in the future.
These researchers understood the risks and consequences of the developing grazing industry, and yet their only concern with the livestock was their impact on other industries. They were singularly interested in improving the methods of management on the ranch, since this is what they were paid to study. And it wasn’t even as though the native grasses were unsuitable for raising livestock per se, merely insufficient for maximizing yields. The invasive grasses themselves spread far beyond the confines of the ranches, where they were left completely unmanaged. These aggressive habitat-invaders destroyed soil quality and killed off the local flora which were far less flammable. Some of these invasive grasses, rather than decomposing when they die, leave behind dry twigs and shrubs, creating a tinderbox environment. Others, like fountain grass, are fire-adapted, meaning they’re specialized to provoke fires in order to clear underbrush, open forest floors to sunlight, and to spread their seeds. These seeds are fire-resistant and grow back quickly in the ash-covered soil — much more quickly than the native plants — creating a feed-back loop benefiting the invasive species at the expense of the ecosystem.
It was not enough to deform the natural ecological landscape. Colonizers have also monopolized the water on the islands. Natural sources of freshwater have been diverted toward the production of goods and services for the benefit of a market of global consumers — and to the detriment of the local population. This is theft! Directly from the people of Hawai’i, to the colonizers, the tourists, and the markets of the U.S. Empire.
Colonial apologists, like colonial apologists everywhere, claim that this benefits the native Hawai’ians, that it “provides jobs” and “investment.” Who can turn down an offer so generous as “investment”? But investment — by and for an exploiting class — only means the magnanimous “opportunity” to be dispossessed of one’s land, to have one’s labor exploited in return for a fraction of the stolen stolen resources, to serve the very people destroying one’s ancestral homeland, and to become indebted to them in the process. In return, these corporations then end up draining the water table, further drying up the land. Worse still, these corporations retain priority usage of Hawai’i’s water even in the midst of crisis. According to a petition created by the Hawaiʻi Alliance for Progressive Action:
“West Maui Land Company [is a] a real estate developer who sucked public streams dry in order to build hotels, golf courses, luxury homes, and colonial-style subdivisions. Their subsidiary is Launuipoko Irrigation Company, which takes all of the water from Kaua‘ula Stream to provide water for exotic landscaping, pools, golf courses, and decorative fountains.
On the day of the Lahaina fires, West Maui Land Company wrote a series of letters to the Governor and the Hawai‘i Department of Land and Natural Resources requesting more stream water be diverted than allowed under state law in order to fill their water reservoirs for firefighting. The truth and reality is that the water reservoirs that West Maui Land Co. asked to fill up could NOT have been used to fight the Lahaina fires. This is because these reservoirs only serve the luxury estates above Lahaina, and are not connected to the county water system or any fire hydrants…
West Maui Land Co. is exploiting the tragedy in Lahaina to further justify increasing water diversions under their corporate control.”
STOP STEALING MAUI’S WATER PETITION
The request to divert additional water in the middle of a fire was, luckily, denied. On the other hand, 100% of the water going towards luxury services — water that, as the petition says, could not have been used to fight the fires — should have been diverted towards the fires instead, but there was no capacity to do this. The infrastructure literally does not exist, thanks to the control the big colonizer corporations have over the Hawai’ian government. Because the state chose not to completely prioritize their assets, West Maui Land Company went on a rampage, blaming stream protections for the fire. Subsequently, defamatory articles were printed about Kaleo Manuel, the longest serving Water Commission Deputy Director and the first Native Hawai’ian to serve in this position, causing him to be fired. The petition adds, “Kaleo helped to advance stream restoration throughout the state and served nearly four years on the Water Commission.” Typical of capital to turn every tragedy into an opportunity, this corporation manipulated public opinion to punish one of the few members of local government dutifully serving their community.
One of the few members indeed: another detail too infrequently emphasized is the failure of the local government, filled with corrupt bureaucrats, in responding effectively to the fires. Take, for example, Herman Andaya, who was hired to lead the Maui Emergency Management Agency in 2017, despite having neither education in, nor experience with, disaster preparedness. Apparently, his main qualification was being chief of staff to then-mayor Alan Arakawa, beating out over 40 other applicants. At the outbreak of the fire, the Maui Emergency Management Agency failed to sound warning sirens, which could have saved lives; survivors reported they only became aware of the fire when they actually saw and smelled smoke. Andaya’s excuse for this negligence? Sounding the sirens wasn’t an option officials considered because they’re “mainly used for tsunamis.” The state’s own website says the sirens are useful for many kinds of emergencies.
For the residents of Lahaina, finding out about the fire was only the first of several obstacles to survival. As the flames began tearing down this West Maui town, cars fled down the only paved road, toward safety. Instead of escaping from the inferno, they discovered that the highway was blocked off by a police barricade. According to an MSN report:
One family swerved around the barricade and was safe in a nearby town 48 minutes later, another drove their four-wheel-drive car down a dirt road to escape. One man took a dirt road uphill, climbing above the fire and watching as Lahaina burned. He later picked his way through the flames, smoke and rubble to pull survivors to safety.
In deadly Maui fires, many had no warning and no way out. Those who dodged a barricade survived
Others were not so lucky. Some died stuck in their vehicles, leaving behind charred, metal shells, like a grim parade of abandoned cicada husks. Others died trying to flee on foot or by swimming away. According to Maui Police Chief John Pelletier, the road was blocked due to power lines which had been knocked down by the wind. But given that an electrical shock is not a risk to those inside a vehicle, and that letting people burn to death is a gruesome and cruel alternative, one can’t help but wonder: is this criminal negligence or malicious intent? The MSN article adds, “Hawaiian Electric had no procedure in place for turning off the grid — a common practice in other fire-prone states.”
As if the conjunction of all these factors and failures were not enough, real-estate firms have already begun working to steal land from those whose homes have burned down, salting the wounds by offering low-ball cash offers. And why wouldn’t they? Capitalists can smell fresh blood, the promise of profit, from miles away; when a disaster strikes, prices plummet, attracting a feeding frenzy of the most vicious predators in the economic ocean. Naturally, helping people to rebuild and recover would only ruin this chance opportunity to shake them down; such is the infallible wisdom of the market system.
The fallout of this terrible tragedy underscores the conflicting interests between classes — in this case, the working people of Hawai’i and the colonizers — and the catastrophic consequences of prioritizing profit over life. Capitalist agricultural practices eschew sustainability; political appointees put the needs of capital over their supposed constituents, blocking progress; fascist pig cops take lives to protect property. And all this further entrenches the subjugation of the native Hawai’ians to the people occupying and destroying their homeland. Preventing further devastation will inevitably entail, at a minimum, the expropriation of the capitalists and the return of national sovereignty to the Hawai’ians.
In the famous last words of John Brown, “I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with blood.”
