“Men and women do not live by fish alone. If opakapaka or even akule were to go up to 25 cents a pound, so what? Are we gonna die? The Northwest Hawaiian Islands is the last Hawaiian place. Not Hana.”
Those views, of Jim Anthony, director of the Hawai‘i La‘ieikawai Association, were typical of testimony from more than a dozen others testifying at a recent public meeting. The meeting, convened by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Manage ment Council, was to hear the public weigh in on the council’s proposed fishing regula tions for waters surrounding the leeward Hawaiian islands, which are soon to be governed as a national marine sanctuary.
Anthony and most others who spoke said that despite the council’s interest in promoting commercial fishing, commer cial fishing should take a back seat to the fragile marine resources in the area.
Council staff, however, attempted to stress the value of keeping the NWHI open to bottomfishing, noting that the bottomfishing vessels permitted to fish in the NWHI accounted for 25 jobs, or 22 percent of the total jobs in Hawai‘i related to bottomfishing and roughly $1.1 million, or 36 percent, of total annual sales of bottomfish.
Regulations for the area that have been proposed by staff of the Northwestern Ha waiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Re serve, the agency that is laying the ground work for the NWHI sanctuary, threaten the continued existence of bottomfishing, the council says, because they would force fish ermen into smaller areas and don’t allow for permits to be transferred. “As fishery par ticipants age and leave the fishery, there will be no new entrants to take their place and the fishery will close,” the council stated in an analysis of alternatives prepared for the public meetings.
This month, the council is expected to approve its preferred set of fishing rules for the proposed NWHI National Marine Sanc tuary. Those rules will then be forwarded to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce for review and approval. Despite a brief effort to find some common ground, disagreement be tween the council and the National Ocean Service’s sanctuary program over how much and what kind of fishing should be allowed in the sanctuary is persistent as ever.
According to the council’s executive di rector, Kitty Simonds, the council had hoped to iron out conflicts between it and the sanctuary program through a working group. Failing that, she continued, the council hoped at the very least to prepare a draft environmental impact statement for the regulations. But the working group, consisting of staff from the sanctuary pro gram, the National Marine Fisheries Ser vice, the state of Hawai‘i, the council, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, met only once, on October 29, 2004, Simonds said.
“Staff of the National Ocean Service/ National Marine Sanctuary Program at tended the meeting only to provide or gather more information regarding bottomfishing, and declined to participate in any discussion that would involve resolv ing conflicts and issues regarding the goals and objectives for the proposed sanctuary or developing a consensus preferred alter native for the Council to analyze before the March 2005 Council meeting. Because the purpose of the working group could not be met without the Sanctuaries Program’s participation, it was not convened thereafter,” Simonds wrote in an email to Environment Hawai‘i.
The council’s fall-back plan to prepare a draft environmental impact statement was nixed earlier this year by the National Oce anic and Atmospheric Administration (its parent agency). In lieu of that, the council held public informational meetings across the state in January, presenting its analysis of how various fishing regimes for the North western Hawaiian Islands National Marine Sanctuary would affect the reef ecosystem, fishery participants, fish stocks, protected species, and Native Hawaiians.
In its analysis document, the council stacked its more liberal fishing regime (plus two modifications of that regime) up against various, more restrictive ones, including the status quo, the sanctuary progam’s alterna tive (proposed late last year), and complete closure of all fisheries.
On O‘ahu, testimony overwhelmingly supported greater restriction of all human activity in the area.
Hawaiian historian Marion Kelly, whose father had fished for pearls at Pearl and Hermes Reef for Lorrin Thurston until 1929, said that opening the NWHI will lead to overfishing. And Buzzy Agard, who used to fish there years ago, agreed: “There are many of us who fished in the NWHI and it’s not sustainable,” he said. “As much as you want to believe there’s lots of fish out there … each time, we’d fish it down…. I don’t want my grandkids to have to look in a book at the fish I used to catch.”
Only two bottomfishers, both of whom have permits to fish the NWHI, testified against the sanctuary program’s proposal to severely restrict the areas where bottomfishing will be allowed if and when the sanctuary is designated.
One of those fishermen was Gary Dill, who testified that the federal government, through NOAA, “is fixing to steal all the resources of our leeward islands from the people who live here, work here.” Former President Bill Clinton wanted to protect coral reefs and continue fishing, but when the sanctuary office took over, Dill continued, “This bureaucracy has taken a simple idea of protecting coral reefs to grand theft,” by including “ecosystems” and “resources” in its protection plans.
To this, the Sierra Club’s Dave Raney said, “The idea that the federal government is stealing resources by protecting them is absurd.”
Dueling Regimes
Last year, it seemed the council was planning to draft its rules for the sanctuary under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which guides all of its management actions. While the Sanctuaries Act states that the nation’s eight fishery councils (including theWesternPacific coun cil) shall use Magnuson-Stevens to guide its rulemaking to the extent that the act is “con sistent and compatible with the goals and objectives of the proposed designation,” some of those testifying at the O‘ahu meeting warned that the council’s proposals did not seem to fit with the Sanctuaries Act.
Those proposals anticipate allowing fish ing for crustaceans (lobsters) and precious deep-water corals in the future on a case-by-case basis; neither fishery is now active in the Northwestern Hawaiian islands. Ellen Athas of the Ocean Conservancy (who worked on the executive order that created the NWHI reserve) expressed her concern that such pro posals don’t comply with the Sanctuaries Act.
With regard to sanctuary designation, “there is a clear chain of events that is sup posed to take place. The sanctuary program creates goals and objectives, Wespac [the council] drafts regulations, the Secretary of Commerce accepts them, or not. Sanctuaries aren’t there to increase extractive use. If they lowered protection it would violate the Sanc tuaries Act,” she said.
William Aila, a member of the Reserve Advisory Council that helped draft the sanc tuary program’s rules and objectives warned, “Whoever is steering your canoe is leading you to the reef. Failure to draft [fishing] rules under the Sanctuaries Act will likely result in your rules being rejected. Don’t do the fisher men counting on you a disservice.”
Simonds, the council’s executive director, stated in an email to Environment Hawai‘i that rules will be drafted pursuant to Section 304(A)(5) of the National Marine Sanctuaries Act. The council, she continued, also intends to amend its various fishery management plans “when we transition from fishery-based plans to archipelagic-based Fishery Ecosys tem Plans (FEP). We intend on developing a Hawaiian Archipelago FEP, which will man age Hawaii’s marine ecosystem resources and regulate demersal fisheries (e.g. bottomfish, crustaceans, precious corals, and coral reef ecosystem fisheries) throughout entire U.S. exclusive economic zone surrounding the Hawaiian Islands and possibly Johnston Atoll.” Pelagic ecosystems will likely be man aged under a separate FEP.
While it is uncertain what type of fishing, if any, will be allowed by the sanctuary pro gram, Simonds says, “should fishing be al lowed in the proposed sanctuary, the council would continue to take the lead on managing fishing activities in federal waters throughout Hawaiian Archipelago, while the National Marine Sanctuary Program takes the lead on addressing the issues of non-fishing activities, public uses, outreach and education and marine debris removal and mitigation for the NWHI and Hawaiian Island Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary.”
Native Hawaiian Rights Teresa Dawson
In advertising the public meetings, the coun cil suggested that the NWHI sanctuary, as envisioned by the sanctuary program, threat ened native Hawaiian rights. This claim stirred some at the January meeting to charge the council with “fear mongering.”
“Under [the sanctuary program’s alterna tive] further access by Native Hawaiians to the NWHI will be limited to subsistence fishing which is defined as the use of marine resources for the purposes of perpetuating traditional knowledge, taking responsibility for the environment, and strengthening cul tural and spiritual connections to the NWHI – with resources to be used only for direct personal consumption while in the NWHI ,” according to material prepared by the council in describing alternative regulatory propos als. “Native Hawaiians living on Ni‘ihau or Kaua‘i will be allowed to bring back ocean resources for ‘customary’ community shar ing. This may engender frustration and anger in Native Hawaiians living on other islands who may not understand or share the think ing underlying this measure. In addition…some native Hawaiians are likely to resent being restricted from accessing or fishing in the NWHI as many regard this as their birthright not subject to abrogation.”
At the January meeting, after a brief debate between council staff and some testifiers over whether the native Hawaiian rights were indeed being harmed, William Aila tried to explain that traditional native Hawaiian practices were not being threatened.
“It is clear that taking resources and bring ing them back for sale is not a traditional practice,” he said, adding that fishing that is accompanied by “good feelings in your na`au (gut),” and the proper blessings can be con ducted. Alia said Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau people are to be given customary access because “they have provided proof that they went up there and got fish and turtle meat, and not for monetary gain. It was not take, take, take. They took ho‘okupu (tribute). They paddled in their canoes and went up there with salt, not with motorboats and refrig erators,” he said.
— Teresa Dawson
Volume 15, Number 9 March 2005
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