Land Board Adopts Rules Governing Tropical Fish Collecting in West Hawai’i
Cheers and applause exploded from the conference room at the Big Island’s Natural Energy Laboratory on September 24, when the state Board of Land and Natural Resources voted to adopt rules restricting aquarium fish collecting along West Hawai’i’s coast.
The rules set aside nine areas as Fish Replen–ishment Areas (FRA). In these FRAs, amount–ing to just over a third of West Hawai’i’s coastal waters, aquarium fish collection and fish feed–ing are prohibited. Adoption of the rules comes after more than 20 years of efforts to manage aquarium fish collecting, a business that some opponents call a “rapist industry.”
Currently 50 fishermen hold commercial aquarium collection permits for West Hawai’i, and, according to a staff submittal, at least 225,000 animals are taken annually.
At the Land Board meeting, Kona biologist William Walsh presented graphs illustrating a significant drop in population among the top ten aquarium species in selected parts of West Hawai’i. Between the late 1970s and 1998, populations had dropped 54 percent at Ke’ei and 59 percent at Honaunau.
At a public hearing on the rules in April, dive charter owner Lisa Choquette said, “After only two years, the aquarium fishes Yellow Tang, Potter’s Angels, Long Nose Butterflies, Moorish Idols, and Achilles Tangs decreased by 45 to 63 percent. This is not wisely harvest–ing a resource. This is raping it.”
The staff of Department of Land and Natu–ral Resources’ Division of Aquatic Resources echoed Choquette’s comments.
“Left unmanaged, these impacts can cause major long-term damage to coral reef commu–nities. Without these rules, conflict and con–frontation will continue and reef resources will remain in jeopardy,” according to the September submittal pre–pared by DAR administrator Bill Devick.
After years of complaints and meetings about managing the industry, the 1996 Legisla–ture directed the Department of Land and Natural Re–sources’ Division of Aquatic Resources to assemble the West Hawai’i Reef Fish Working Group to develop recommendations on man–aging the fishery. The group was to consist of representatives of various constituen–cies, including the commu–nity, fish collectors, the dive and snorkel industry, and commercial and recreational fishers.
The group held nine meetings between May 1996 and September 1997 and devel–oped several recommendations. None, how–ever, were made into administrative rules because of “opposition by O’ahu aquarium collectors and legislative inertia,” according to a September 1999 report to the DLNR by Walsh.
In 1998, concerned community groups such as LOSTFISH Coalition and the Hawai’i Conservation Association pushed for legislation to limit collecting. The result was Act 306, signed that July, which established the West Hawai’i Regional Fishery Management Area and required that a minimum of 30 percent of that area be set aside as fish replen–ishment areas.
Within a year, a West Coast Fisheries Council was established (with many former members of the WHRFWG), held meetings, and, in April 1999, took draft rules out to public hearing.
The Industry
The fish collecting industry was all but absent at the September meeting. But judging by comments made by several fish collectors at the April public hearing, friction between collectors and other users of the resource will not disappear with the adoption of the rules.
“To implement the management plan that includes only 30 to 40 people out of thousands who use the resource, and expect the plan to work, is absolutely ludicrous,” said Jim Lovell, a tropical fish collector since 1979.
Collector David Dart also felt that “we are being singled out unfairly for persecution.” He added that, while the FRAs represented roughly 35 percent of the coastline, “it repre–sents a much higher percentage of the areas we actually harvest.”
The only representative of the fish collect–ing industry to show up at the September Land Board meeting was Pete Basabe, a dive instructor who has collected tropical fish for 30 years.
Basabe said he supported the off-limits areas. However, he felt that some of the areas left open to collection were more dangerous to collect fish, and he felt that the rules’ ban on possession of collecting gear while in an FRA would make it difficult for aquarium fisher–men to troll through an FRA for “dinner” fish.
Last Call
Back in April, Basabe complained that the council membership mostly had tropical fish advocates who were “intent on punishing the tropical fishermen.”
“By the last council meeting, there were no fishermen left on the council,” he said. “They did not get the answers that they were looking for on the council.”
At the September meeting, Basabe said the tropical fishermen were “encouraged not to come.”
Land Board chair Tim Johns was not impressed. “Failure to participate is not the way to get your point across,” he told Basabe.
In addition to establishing the FRAs, the rules also set up a system for identification of fish collectors’ boats and allow for setting of a control date in the future, if it becomes neces–sary to limit entry into the aquarium collec–tion fishery. (At that point, only collectors having permits at the time of the control date would be ensured of the right to participate in the closed fishery.)
To allow for a contested case hearing, the Land Board recently extended by 180 days the period for considering an application to build a house, swimming pool, and guest cot–tage on Conservation District land fronting La Perouse Bay, Maui.
The application was submitted by Colo–rado resident Douglas Schatz, owner of the land.
On June 1, at a public hearing regarding Schartz application for a Conservation Dis–trict Use Permit, attorney Isaac Davis Hall requested the contested case hearing. Hall represents Hui Alanuio Makena and Keauhou O Honua’ula, Inc. Both organizations are “concerned with protecting and conserving valuable park and coastal resources, as well as Native Hawaiian traditional and customary rights, particularly within the subject Honua’ula District,” according to a July 8 memo from Land Board chair Tim Johns to Attorney General Earl Anzai.
A house, a cottage and a tennis court currently sit on the property. However, because the parcel is situated between the ‘Ahihi –Kina’u and Kanalo Natural Area Reserves, and several archaeological sites, some Maui residents believe that the site should not be further developed.
“Any time we can encourage the Department of Defense and the Army National Guard to be good stewards of land they’re using, we’ll take advantage of that,” Land Board chair Tim Johns said at the board’s October 8 meeting.
At that meeting, the Land Board approved a Conservation District Use Permit for a Hawai’i Army National Guard project to re–store and protect endangered species by erect–ing a fence around approximately 20 acres of vegetation in its Kanaio Training Area on the southeast tip of Maui.
Two miles of eight-foot hog wire will be installed around three sites at Pu’u Pohakea and Pu’u Pimoe to exclude goats and deer from the area, and to control weeds and out–planting of some species.
While the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has no records of threatened or endangered species within the areas, “the presence of such species is still possible,” according to an Octo–ber 8 staff submittal. The vegetation now consists mostly of non-native plant spe–cies that have adapted to fire and ungulate feeding.
The guard would take an ex–ecutive order to manage the area. An EO would “justify a continu–ation of federal funding for land management operations in the area, i.e. alien grass suppression, weed sur–veys, endangered species recovery and man–agement. We see the importance of this be–cause of the proximity to two Natural Area Reserves,” according to a HIARG representative, Trae Menard.
The project is part of an agreement the HIARG has with the United States Geological Survey, Haleakala National Park, the non–profit agency Living Indigenous Forest Eco–systems, Ulupalakua Ranch, and the Depart–ment of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry and Wildlife for the construction of three fenced enclosures for the protection and recovery of federally listed endangered species at Kanaio Training Area at Makena, Maui.
“How can we trust, if we can’t ask a simple question and get a straightforward answer?” Carroll Cox asked the Land Board at its August 27 meeting. Cox, head of Envirowatch, an environmental watch-dog effort, had turned his sights on a $300,000 sole-source contract between the state and The Peregrine Fund for operation of the’ state’s endangered bird propagation facility on Maui and to conduct other bird propagation efforts else–where in the state.
Cox said he had repeatedly requested information from the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Forestry and Wildlife and TPF about the Fund’s work in Hawai’i, to no avail. As far as he knew, TPF had “little or no success in saving endangered birds. He asked the board to “defer until they provide a clear and complete record of conditions of previous grants and this grant.”
According to the staff report, TPF was “discussing a partnership with the San Diego Zoo to increase the overall capability of their operations in Hawai’i.” A “special condition” in the contract would let TPF “assign certain obligations and liabilities to an assignee with the state’s approval.” (Environment Hawai`i reported in March that TPF would be pulling out of Hawai’i.)
Cox asked why TPF was allowed to get a sole-source contract and then pass duties on to the San Diego Zoo. He also wanted to know about additional funds paid to TPF, whether DOFAW administrator Mike Buck had authority to approve subcontracting, why TPF staff got rent-free housing, who kept medical records on the birds, and how to see the annual reports that are supposed to be submitted.
Matsumoto turned to Buck. “These are good questions. I can’t tell if they’ve [TPF] been successful. Is there a public report?”
Buck assured Matsumoto, that, yes, an–nual progress reports were available to the public that would answer many of Cox’s questions.
Matsumoto asked about the legality of exporting of sole-source work to the main–land. Buck stepped around the question by saying that, at this point, “We haven’t seen any documents with the San Diego Zoo.”
Changing the subject, Buck noted that “We are light years ahead… TPF has a great facility.”
“I don’t doubt they’ve done a good job. I want to make sure the money goes to Hawai’i interests,” Matsumoto said.
Despite Cox’s arguments, the board was satisfied that TPF was the best candidate for the work, and voted to approve the contract. In response to Cox’s concerns about obtain–ing information, Land Board Chair Johns encouraged Buck to improve cooperation and openness with the public.
— Teresa Dawson
Volume 10, Number 5 November 1999
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