Cue up lawsuit number three concerning Maui's recently passed voter initiative for a Moratorium on GMO production and testing throughout the county. This one has been filed at the federal level by Earthjustice and the Center for Food Safety.
During the run-up to the local elections, Monsanto et al played marketing games with the title of Maui county's GMO initiative, which officially was the Maui County Genetically Modified Organism Moratorium Initiative. Monsanto's campaign was, "Vote No on The Maui County Farming Ban", with a strong negative spin that passage would harm small, organic farms and turn backyard growers into criminals. Not. An adequate majority of voters saw through the fear tactic and voted Yes anyway.
But karma being karma, Earthjustice et al have now applied their own PR spin:
...to defend the County of Maui’s recently passed genetically engineered (GE) crop safety initiative from a legal challenge by multinational chemical companies.
Touché.
More below the non-GMO potato...
Just three weeks since the election, we're actually up to three lawsuits. The first was filed by the local SHAKA Movement, a grassroots organization of island residents who have done the heavy lifting to get the word out, educate local voters, and oversee an effective petition drive that surprised many people who thought collecting the needed 8,465 valid signatures an impossible goal. SHAKA collected 9,062 valid signatures.
SHAKA and others filed shortly after the initiative passed, putting pressure on the Maui County Council to proceed with the Moratorium and not sit on it, as some elected apologists for the local GMO industry are inclined to do.
Fyi, SHAKA is both a hand gesture, and an acronym for Sustainable Hawaiian Agricultre for Keiki (Children) and Aina (land). Very clever and spot on. From Wikipedia:
Hawaiians use the shaka to convey the "Aloha Spirit", a concept of friendship, understanding, compassion, and solidarity among the various ethnic cultures that reside within Hawaii, lacking a direct semantic to literal translation. The shaka can also be used to express "howzit?", "thanks, eh?", and "all right!" Drivers will often use it on the road to communicate distant greetings and gratitude.
SHAKA succeeded through a well-executed grassroots network of individuals and businesses open to supporting the cause. They hosted multiple assemblies, including town hall meetings and marches through the heart of Kahului.
Local public-access media played a strong supporting role, by reporting on the civic actions and enabling on-air discussion.
The second lawsuit was filed as expected by Monsanto to protect its corporate image and business interests on Maui.
(From Maui Now, September 11th, 2014)
Correction: There is actually a fourth lawsuit, filed back in September before the election. Once it was clear that the SHAKA movement had succeeded in its petition drive, a pro-GMO lobby tried and failed to have the initiative removed from the ballot, on a technical argument that they did not like the initiative's name.
Stay tuned. A prominent judge in the current lawsuit has overturned a GMO Law once before in Kauai. But judging from all the shaka signs being flashed around here, I am confident that many Maui residents will unify to answer the challenge.