In the Hawaii island of Maui, at least 93 persons have died and hundreds of persons reported missing, as a result of wildfires that began last Tuesday. A total of 15,000 tourists have so far left the island while six emergency shelters remain open. According to the Hawaii Governor, the fires are the largest natural disaster in Hawaii state history, with 80 percent of the beach-front town of Lahaina destroyed. Eyewitnesses reported that the blaze ripped through the town so quickly that some people jumped into the harbour to escape the flames and smoke. Several countries have had to grapple with wildfires due to rising temperatures caused mainly from the burning of fossil fuels.
The Auditor General of Ontario, Canada, issued a scathing report on the Province’s decision to open up parts of the Greenbelt for housing. The Greenbelt is an area of about two million acres of protected farmland, wetlands and woodlands. It was created in 2005 to permanently protect productive farmland and natural features from uncontrolled urban development. The Auditor General found that the arrangement favoured certain developers, lacked transparency and failed to consider environmental, agricultural and financial impacts. Of the 7,400 acres of land removed from the Greenbelt, 92 per cent could be tied to three developers with direct access to the housing ministry. Premier Doug Ford reaction was that ‘[w]e could have had a better process. As Premier, the buck stops with me’. He, however, stated that the provincial government will not reverse course to build 50,000 homes using land from the Greenbelt. The report can be accessed at https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/specialreports/specialreports/Greenbelt_en.pdf.