September 25, 2008 - More than 300 professional planners, state and county workers, and other interested audience members gathered last week on Maui, Hawai'i for two days of talks focusing on "E Ola Pono," or "Planning Island Style." The Maui County Planning Department hosted this Hawai'i Conference of Planning Officials (HCPO).

Keynotes speakers discussed a range of necessary shifts to planning frameworks and economic development approaches if our nation -- including our local island economies -- are going to successfully weather globalization, peak oil and climate change.

Small-Mart founder Michael Shuman delivered a keynote discussing how to boost the island's economy through a focus on local self-sufficiency and entreprenuership. Land use planning alone won't help our local economies, he warned. "All of us need to go back to business school," Shuman said. "I would argue that all of us are choosing poorly by putting local business to the side and not to the central focus of our planning."

Shuman offered a number of suggestions "going local," including plugging leaks in planning that inhibit local business incentives; supporting local entrepreneurs; competing through collaboration (which prompted an audience member to pull out her ‘Ohana Savers card); harnessing pension funds locally; promoting "Local First" purchasing and removing policy-making bias to the status quo belief that "there is no alternative."

Other keynote speakers included Oregon Department of Energy Senior Policy Analyst John Kaufman and University of Hawai'i lecturer Ramsey Taum, director of Sustain Hawai'i. Said Taum, we must "recognize the insanity" of our unsustainable imports, change the way we think, change our behavior, plan for seven generations, and act locally to live in balance and support our needs.

Mayor Charmaine Tavares, speaking on one of the discussion panels, agreed: "I represent a shift in the counties for a quest to self-sufficiency, she said. "The question is, ‘What will we do on Monday?’ We need a result, a change in our behavior, or our conferences are all for naught."

For the full article by reporter Dante Diaz on MauiWeekly.com, click here.

Click here for more information on the Hawai'i Conference of Planning Officials (HCPO) and the Maui County Planning Department.