In the Honolulu Star Bulletin Gathering Place on 8/27/06 was “Use Hawaiian knowledge to repopulate fish stocks” by Sharon Pomroy. In it  she suggested that there are already enough laws on the books about fishing but nothing seems to help with the regard to the goal of increasing fish stock. She also stressed the need for enforcement of related laws.

Finally she suggested using already existing Hawaiian fishpond expertise as a means of solving the problem.

She misses the key to success—ownership—which could produce potential profit. If the state would lease the fishponds and surrounding areas to private operators and allow them to run them as a business (selling fish and or fishing privileges), several miracles would happen.

-The old ponds would be restored in record time and fish would multiply in them

-Jobs would be created and the government would have income

-Need for more rigorous enforcement of laws would abate

-Other good shoreline locations would be leased for new ponds to be built

-Prosperity would be boosted

-Native Hawaiian technical fishpond expertise would eventually be in high demand--- perhaps internationally.

All this would occur because of the miracle of private property in a stable legal environment. Without it, nothing positive will happen.

Sharon's ideas will sit and wait forever without that missing link.

Richard O. Rowland is president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, a non-partisan, non-profit public policy institute focused on promoting the free-market, individual freedom and liberty. He is now in his third career; the first culminating in his retirement as a Colonel, U.S. Army Military Police Corps, from the second he retired as a Financial Representative with Northwestern Mutual Network. He has a premonition that any further careers will not be in government service. He can be reached via email at: mailto:dick@grassrootinstitute.org. More information about the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii can be found at its Web site at http://www.grassrootinstitute.org