The Spring 2020 semester turned out to be one of the most unusual periods in all of our lives. I am sure we will never forget the trauma of living, learning, and surviving through the global COVID-19 pandemic, alongside a multitude of national political crises and civic challenges.
With the hope that everyone reading this newsletter is safe and sound, including healthy families, friends, and colleagues, I am honored to share some news about what Iʻve been up to for the past six months.
As January 2020 started, I had just stepped down after 8-1/2 years as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and over 14 years of work with Dean Avi Soifer on the new Clinical Building. I was confident that the Law School was in very good hands with Associate Deans Ronette Kawakami and my successor Dan Barnett, and I knew that the deanship transition would be a happy one for my Dean Soifer.
I was utterly exhausted – and super excited – to start my long-awaited sabbatical semester before I was due to return to “regular faculty” in Fall 2020. I guess I will always be “Dean A” to most of you, but that title will soon fade as incoming students next Fall will get to know me as “Professor A.” No matter the title, my time at Richardson as “management” or “just faculty” – and especially with ELP – has truly been a privilege.
Second Global Symposium on the Judiciary and the Environment
The year started off with a bang – I finalized and executed a two-day, high-level global environmental law conference with over 30 judges and academics at the Law School and the Hawai‘i Supreme Court, on January 31 and February 1, along with a week’s worth of spillover side events.
In my volunteer role as Deputy Chair of the World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL) of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), I had been working on these conference preparations for over a year, co-organizing the complex event with partners from the Environmental Law Institute, the United Nations Environment Programme, the Organization of American States, and the Global Judicial Institute on the Environment.
We linked this Hawaiʻi “Second Global Symposium” to the Annual Meeting in Honolulu of the Conference of Chief Justices, which had (for the first time, ever) an educational focus on environmental law, allowing our event the honor of hosting over six U.S. Court Chief Justices at the Law School (creating some daunting logistical, protocol, and security issues).
In addition to the terrific presentations of the speakers over two days, including many of our ELP faculty and Hawaiʻi Supreme Court and Circuit Court judges, the Symposium succeeded due to the hard work of a great team of over 25 volunteer/ambassador Richardson students and graduates. You were awesome! In particular, thanks go to May Nachum ’21, Emily Gaskin ʻ17, and Chase Livingston ʻ19 for their amazing commitment to the success of very packed, complicated, and long days of events with our distinguished visitors. Read more about the Symposium here: [blog] http://blog.hawaii.edu/elp/news-events/uncategorized/second-global-symposium-on-the-judiciary-and-the-environment/. May and I are now working on publishing the proceedings for this event.
Second World Environmental Law Congress, Rio de Janeiro
Immediately after we finished the Hawaiʻi Symposium and said aloha to our many wonderful visitors, I refocused my energies on a second major IUCN sabbatical project, the WCEL Second World Environmental Law Congress, scheduled to be held in Rio de Janeiro Brazil a few weeks later in March. Working closely with WCEL Chair Antonio Benjamin (a high court judge in Brazil), Emily, WCEL leadership and partners, over a year of complicated planning took place, from speaker invitations to arranging interpretation services to hotel and plane tickets, for what had turned into an entire week of high-level events in Rio. We started to call it the “Environmental Law Superweek.”
However, the frightening news about COVID soon crashed into our plans with about a month to go, and we ultimately decided to postpone what would have been a gathering of around 300+ speakers and participants from around the world and across Brazil. I must again thank Emily Gaskin for her unbelievable work with me and Justice Benjamin on the heroic planning for this global event. It will happen in the future, when conditions permit, with a different format, but with the same passion and commitment that allowed us to get so very close this time around.
IUCN World Conservation Congress, Marseille, France
Similarly, COVID also postponed my third major sabbatical project, the IUCN World Conservation Congress (WCC). Originally scheduled to take place in early June in Marseille, France, the WCC would have been a gathering of over 12,000 people, including a Hawai‘i delegation of about 100 people (part of the IUCN Hawaiʻi Hui that I helped organized when the WCC was in Honolulu in 2016), including several Law School faculty, students, and graduates. Now scheduled for January 2021, planning ahead for the WCC is still a major task on my plate, both in my role as WCEL Deputy Chair and as Election Officer.
IUCN Election Officer
I am also the IUCN’s Council-appointed Election Officer for the global elections at WCC, which take place every four years. In this role, as well as my Deputy Chair role, I have constant communication with IUCN Headquarters in Switzerland, including many late night Zoom calls and, pre-COVID, trips for Council meetings. I took two trips to Switzerland, one in January 2020 and one in February 2020, for a Congress programme workshop and then a Council meeting with election systems training. We did not know at the time that this would be the last face-to-face meeting we might have for a very long time.
WCEL Deputy Chair
Even after lock down, WCEL has continued to be a major commitment for me – as the “number two” running a Commission with almost 1,400 members around the world. We decided to innovate in response to postponement of these in-person events. In March, WCEL launched a global webinar series on environmental law topics. Again, with Emily’s great assistance, I have helped organize and moderate or host four WCEL Webinars to date, on topics ranging from zoonosis to climate litigation (this last webinar had over 700 registered participants from around the world). We expect to host up to 10 more webinars through the end of 2020, in different languages and time zones, with top level speakers from around the globe. Not easy to organize, but we hope the Webinars will be a long-lasting contribution to our field of law. You can check out the webinars here:
https://www.iucn.org/commissions/world-commission-environmental-law/resources/webinar-series
Research and Writing
With those travel plans and other trips all cancelled, my sabbatical focus also happily turned to research and writing projects. With the able research assistance of Colin Lee ʻ21, I am working on an article about Hawaiʻi’s environmental review law (HRS Chapter 343), and dusting off old pre-Associate-Dean-era drafts of a book on Hawai’i environmental law. Writing is never fast for me, but I am slowly making progress.
Law Fellows
I have also been keeping up various environmental law professional networks with endless Zooms. I have especially enjoyed continuing to organize the very fun and highly entertaining monthly Zoom meetings of the ELP Law Fellows group and our supervisors/partners at the Department of Land & Natural Resources. I absolutely love my role as founder of this program and being the “convening auntie” (along with ELP Director David Forman) of former and current law fellows who participate in these meetings, include eight Richardson graduates and three wonderful non-Richardson graduates: David Sakoda ‘10 (Division of Aquatic Resources – now in a permanent civil service position), Todd Tashima ‘17 (Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation – now in a permanent civil service position), Drew Porter ‘12 (Division of Aquatic Resources), Ian Garrod ‘17 (Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement), Kathryn Stanaway ‘17 (Division of Forestry and Wildlife), Ryan McDermott ‘19 (Division of Aquatic Resources), Ku’upua Kiyuna ‘19 (through Ka Huli Ao, Division of State Historic Preservation), Sabtrina Gramberg ’18 (though Ka Huli Ao, Commission on Water Resource Management), and three non-Richardson Law Fellows (at the Division of State Parks, Engineering, and with the State Department of Agriculture).
Keeping the Country Country
I have long been committed to community service on the North Shore, and my sabbatical has given me more time to help various efforts and organizations involved in protecting the “country.”
I have been spending even more than the usual volunteer time for Mālama Pūpūkea-Waimea, of which I have been President since we founded the organization in 2005. We have educational and stewardship programs, as well as law and policy work, focused on protecting the Pūpūkea Marine Life Conservation District (that includes Waimea Bay, Three Tables, and Sharks Cove), all of which had to adjust to COVID conditions.
MPW is also now involved as a client in public interest litigation over a proposed commercial tourist-food truck development across from Sharks Cove (savesharkscovealliance.org), which is in 1st Circuit Court. This litigation became all the more difficult when the developer counter-sued our alliance for $13 million – known as a Strategic Litigation against Public Participation (or SLAPP) suit. To educate the public about the perils of SLAPPs, I co-organized and moderated a webinar on the topic, featuring speakers from the ACLU-Hawaiʻi and a SLAPP expert from Denver, as well as our attorney Tim Vandeveer ʻ17 and another co-plaintiff. It is hard to be a client after having been a litigator myself (my career before I started teaching) but we are fortunate to have a great team of attorneys representing the alliance, including several Richardson alumni – Tim of course, and Pamela Bunn ʻ95, and Erika (Lewis) Amatore ʻ06 who are both at Dentons.
With COVID bursting last year’s intense peak in tourism, my organization and the Save Sharks Cove Alliance has also been leading community conversations about unsustainable visitor numbers. During my sabbatical, I have co-organized a number of Zoom webinars and meetings with community and thought leaders, including a documentary filmmaker from Rapa Nui, to support a more innovative “re-opening” of our economy in a way that protects the positive “rebounding of nature” we saw so vibrantly locally (and globally). Our efforts join streams of conversation now tumbling forth statewide that seek to guide Hawaiʻi toward more resident-focused, sustainable livelihoods rather than going back to business as usual with an inundation of 10 million tourists a year.
Home, Dirt, Weeds, Gardening, Koa, Bees
Amidst all the “work work,” I have completely enjoyed being home, not having to spend my weeks in town, and taking better care of my 1+ acre property. I am trying to make it abundant, tending to my fruit trees, native plants, and 6-year forest project that has over 120 thriving Koa trees and native understory. I love working in the dirt, talking to my plants, and just being outside as much of the day as I can.
And, yes, I took up some popular COVID hobbies, such as sourdough bread baking (I finally succeeded with The Perfect Loaf, after 20 failed loaves), cooking, gardening (my chard is rocking), home renovation projects, and cleaning out the years of clutter. I am also super excited to have become a hanai mom to three beehives and to have the chance to learn the art of beekeeping!
Most importantly, I have loved having my two adult sons – Tate (24) and Conrad (20) at home, together, and being able to spending time with them after their years of wandering since leaving Hawaiʻi after high school – Tate was already in Honolulu working/studying; Conrad came home abruptly when his university closed for COVID, then graduated virtually. This special time with them has made me very happy.
Coming Back Soon, Yep, Refreshed
Although I miss my faculty friends and students most of all, I have greatly appreciated this wonderful break from the 24/7 duties I had for nearly a decade at Richardson. Despite the challenges of COVID, the silver lining of slowing down, focusing on family and home, dustry research projects, and re-setting life’s priorities has been a precious time in my life. For that, I’m very grateful. I hope you have also found the positive in a very strange period of our lives.
And, yep, I look forward to coming back in about a month to start teaching environmental law again. Even if the format changes and the world has been turned upside down, we will have a great time! I also look forward to helping ELP grow, innovate, and succeed for our delayed 30th Anniversary and for years to come.
With aloha,
“Dean A”
TLP 7/11/2020