But polarization is giving way to negotiation on the Big Island, where the Natural Area Working Group has been wrestling with the tough issues of game management for the past two years.
"I've been kind of humbled by it," said Marjorie Ziegler of the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. "I don't see it so much as `us against them' anymore, but just here's your share, here's mine so let's quit busting each other's chops."
Steve Lichter, president of Pig Hunters of Hawaii, is more frustrated. Still, he sees the group as the Big Island hunting community's last, best hope.
"It's the only thing we have going for us," Lichter said. "It seems like the environmentalists want to see us get a piece of the action. More enforcement, game management areas, more funds for wardens. But the state doesn't have the money. It's a pretty picture they're painting. But how close to that are we?"
Ziegler acknowledged that, "so far, the hunters haven't gotten anything. All they've seen is land taken away." But she thinks lawmakers will support game management programs if the hunting and environmental communities present a united front.
As far as land, Lichter said, the environmental faction "wants to give us just what they absolutely cannot use. The places with the most pigs are the places the environmentalists want."
That's true in some instances, Ziegler said, but she is hopeful that newly formed regional councils will "hash that out" and decide how the different lands should be used. "There's enough forests to accommodate the hunters as long as they don't say they want it all."
Besides learning to humanize their former foes, those participating in the process have found common interests, such as protecting public access, supporting local customs and traditional practices, improving the efficiency of state game managers, controlling logging and halting the expansion of grazing leases on the slopes of Mauna Kea.
The awareness could lead to a new, if somewhat uneasy, alliance, Ziegler said. "There are always economic interests that are bigger than the hunters and the environmentalists."
Bill Stormont, state land manager who formed the group when Big Island hunters protested plans to fence prime state lands, said the process seems effective. "We manage public lands. We need to be responsive to the community."
He admits the process is slow, which frustrates hunters, but Stormont said he has seen "a transformation. Everyone . . . has a better understanding of where the other person is coming from. Five years ago, these groups wouldn't even be having a civil discussion."
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