HAWAIIAN WATERSHEDS
Hawaiian watersheds are to be described as a Hawaiian rain forest, which captures and saves large amounts of water.
Total value of a single Hawaiian Watershed = $7.4-14 Billion
Unfortunately, Hawaii’s watersheds are deteriorating and under attack by animals like pigs, goats and deer and aggressive non-native weeds. With government funding scarce and with threatened lands falling across several property lines, conservationists have turned back to the idea of forming partnerships to save the forest.
Over 90% of plants native to Hawaii are Endemic (existing nowhere else in the world).
The passage of a water droplet from mountain-top to aquifer takes roughly 25 years.
Forests affect the hydrology of watersheds in various and complex ways, by increasing evapotranspiration, increasing soil infiltration, intercepting cloud moisture, reducing the nutrient load of runoff, and more. Harvesting, road building, shifting agriculture, grazing, and invasion by alien plant species may all have profound effects on the functioning of watersheds.
Threats
Invertebrates
Plants
Animals
Wildfire
Human Action
For more than a million years, native Hawaiian birds, animals and insects played an integral part of a healthy watershed by pollinating and spreading the seeds of plants. However, foreign plants and animals introduced by Western settlement threaten our Hawaiian rain forest by destroying native plants and animals and invading the environment, and reduce the watershed’s ability to catch and retain water.
Harvesting also affects forested watersheds:
Trees, especially fast-growing ones, use a lot of water. Evaporation and transpiration from a tropical wet forest is typically 50-60 inches per year. Stream flow usually increases after a forested watershed is cut because the water the trees were using now seeps into the soil and eventually into the stream. As the trees regrow or are replanted, stream flow returns to pre-harvest levels in a few years. If only a small area of a watershed is cut at any one time, downstream effects will be minimal. One instance where trees increase rather than decrease stream flow is in high elevation cloud forests. Here trees intercept clouds directly and moisture condensed on the leaves and branches drips onto the soil.
Harvesting both removes forest cover and disturbs the soil. Most erosion during logging occurs along roads, skid trails, and landings. Here the soil is compacted and the rainfall is unable to sink in. Loggers and foresters minimize erosion during harvests by constructing culverts and drainage ditches to disperse water before it erodes the soil, locating roads where they will not become streambeds during heavy rainfall, leaving buffer strips along streams, and using other management practices to protect the land.
Why Protect It?
We need water in order to grow the food that we eat. Simply put, water is the source of life, and a watershed that protects our water is the key to life. By protecting our watersheds, the watersheds will continue to sustain the natural cycle of water and support our need for a reliable water supply.
Forested watersheds will:
- Recharge our water supply
- Protect oceans
- Mitigate the effects of climate change
- Provide habitat for Hawaii’s unique plants and animals
- Mitigate flooding
ANTIBIOTIC FREE
About 80% of all antibiotics sold in the United States are used on farm animals. Most animals are dosed regularly—sometimes even daily—with antibiotic-laced food and water. The antibiotics help animals grow bigger faster and reduce disease in crowded and dirty pens.
Ranchers and farmers have been feeding antibiotics to the animals we eat since they discovered decades ago that small doses of antibiotics administered daily would make most animals gain as much as 3% more weight than they otherwise would. In an industry where profits are measured in pennies per animal, such weight gain was revolutionary.
“When someone’s sick and goes to the doctor, they still expect to get a prescription,” said National Chicken Council spokesman Richard Lobb. He said that people should look to themselves for the causes of antibiotic resistance, referring to the American practice of prescribing antibiotics for even the most minor of illnesses.
Increased use in hospitals may also contribute to the resistance problem. “Today, especially in intensive care wards, the amount of antibiotics in the environment can become high enough that people in the vicinity of patients receiving antibiotics are exposed continuously to low levels of antibiotics,” microbiologist Abigail Salvers of University of Illinois told Scientific American. This low level of exposure, she contends, is one reason why highly resistant bacteria are developing in hospitals. She says that a similar phenomenon may be taking place in agriculture.
Increased public pressure may cause the companies who grow animals for food to collectively decide that putting extra weight on feed animals isn’t worth the possibility that they are putting consumers’ health at risk. People who buy meat are ingesting antibiotics that the animals consume. Consumer action is required to make antibiotic-free meat and poultry more widely available.
Consumer Reports found 60% of poll respondents said they would pay more for antibiotic-free meats; 37% would pay up to one dollar more per pound.
The company Trader Joe’s has been called out to only source their meat from animals raised without antibiotics. As one of the most progressive national retailers, Trader Joe’s has already demonstrated care for their customers’ health by saying no to GMOs, artificial colors and trans fats in the products they sell. Trader Joe’s can also be a leader by helping move the livestock industry in the right direction.
What can you do?
Whether you’re at the supermarket or eating out, check labels or ask your server whether the meat has been treated with antibiotics. Also, sign this petition from MomsRising asking Trader Joe’s to source their meat only from animals raised without antibiotics.