Take Action & Testify

Now is the time to invest in sustaining a healthy environment for future generations and build resilience.

In 2024, our coalition is supporting a number of legislative measures that bolster environmental protection and restoration across Hawaiʻi through additional funding.

Among these include wildfire prevention, additional funding to the Department of Land & Natural Resources, ensuring tourism taxes go toward environmental protection, and more.

The Nature Conservancy Action Center: send a letter to your lawmaker

As part of our coalition leadership, The Nature Conservancy has a simple Action Center that allows you to send a letter to your elected official and urge them to take action for our ‘āina.

This only takes a few minutes, and can make all the difference.

2024 Priority Bills

  1. State Budget to Support DLNR: The Department of Land & Natural Resources is the governing body for natural resources throughout the state, and remains critically underfunded to meet the needs to sustain our environment for our communities. Each year, the State budget determines how much funding will go to DLNR that year. We are backing significant environmental investment with a goal of $100 million in the State budget. This investment would benefit DLNR priorities from natural resource conservation, coastal protection, climate, biocultural restoration, and protection of marine and terrestrial resources.

  2. Wildfire Prevention: The Lāhainā wildfires served as a devastating and urgent sign that we must invest in prevention and resilience, particularly on the leeward side of our islands that experience drought. From invasive species removal to building green breaks around communities, we need funding to build resilience before the next wildfire. We will support all wildfire prevention bills in 2024 with a goal of $30 million.

  3. Transient Accommodations Tax (TAT) Allocation: When visitors book a hotel room, they pay a Transient Accommodations Tax that is allocated to a number of different priorities. Each year, environmental investment falls short of what we need, despite visitors benefiting from our environment throughout their trip. We will support a strong environmental allocation that comes from the visitor TAT.

What could a green fee support?

State management plans already exist to protect our land and waters. Significant funding would help these initiatives benefit our communities.

 How Do I Testify?

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 Tips for Oral Testimony over Zoom

While uploading written testimony is still recorded and reviewed by the committee, showing up in person and sharing your message orally is more powerful. If you are available to testify orally, you will need to join in person at the Hawaiʻi State Capitol or register to attend the Zoom webinar and wait for your name to be called before taking a few minutes to share your thoughts on the measure. Your testimony will be recorded and heard by the entire committee and general public.

  • Prepare your oral testimony in advance using bullet points to highlight the most important parts of your message.

  • Stay straight to the point with your testimony by sharing each key point quickly.

  • Stay gracious and respectful to those you speak with, minimize background noise, and speak clearly.