Conversation

Why was there no water to fight the fire in Maui?

"Big corporations, golf courses and hotels have been taking water from locals for years. Now the fire may result in even more devastating water theft."

"All over Maui, golf courses glisten emerald green, hotels manage to fill their pools and corporations stockpile water to sell to luxury estates. And yet, when it came time to fight the fires, some hoses ran dry. Why?"

"This is a classic case of the most craven disaster capitalism: a small elite group using a profound human tragedy as their window to roll back a hard-won grassroots victory for water rights, while removing civil servants who pose a political inconvenience to the administration’s pro-developer agenda."...
by Naomi Klein and Kapuaʻala Sproat

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/17/hawaii-fires-maui-water-rights-disaster-capitalism
#bushfires #disasters #water #rights #theft #golf #plantations #developers #resorts #SettlerCulture