Saving Seafood

HAWAII: Longliners Have Nearly Pulled In Their 2016 Limit Of Bigeye Tuna

July 14, 2016 — Hawaii’s longline fleet is about to hit its 3,554-ton limit for bigeye tuna in the Western and Central Pacific, prompting a closure date for the fishery of July 22, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The longliners had caught an estimated 98 percent of their annual quota by Wednesday, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service reported. The feds had been predicting longliners would hit their bigeye tuna limit by Aug. 14.

But the closure will likely be short-lived thanks to a federal rule that proposes, like in years past, allowing U.S. Pacific Island territories — American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands — to each allocate up to 1,000 tons of their 2,000-ton quotas to U.S. longliners under a “specified fishing agreement.”

In April, the Hawaii Longline Association reached such an agreement with the Marianas that involves paying the territory $250,000 in each of the next three years for up to half of its quota. That’s $50,000 more than the association paid the territory last year.

The money is deposited into the Western Pacific Sustainable Fisheries Fund, which the territories use for fishery development projects approved by their respective governors, according to Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council spokeswoman Sylvia Spalding. These includes boat ramps, fish markets, processing facilities, training programs and loan programs.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

Proposal would expand marine conservation area in Northwest Hawaiian islands

June 17, 2016 — U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz is proposing to expand one of the world’s largest marine conservation areas in a way that preserves some fishing grounds for local fishermen.

The proposal submitted to President Barack Obama today would make the monument near Hawaii the largest protected marine area in the world.

It reflects a smaller protected area than what was originally sought by Native Hawaiians, who consider the remote islands, atolls and coral reefs found within the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument sacred.

“I think it’s a really good compromise to help alleviate some of the concerns that were raised on Kauai by the fishing community about their access to the waters that are surrounding Papahanaumokuakea,” said Sol Kahoohalahla, a member of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Native Hawaiian Cultural Working Group, which pushed for expansion.

Even so, important fishing grounds would still be lost, said Sean Martin, president of the Hawaii Longline Association, which includes about 140 vessels. About 8 to 12 percent of the fish caught by Hawaii longline fishermen comes from waters in the proposed protected area, he said.

“We’ve been operating there for many, many decades and the place is still pristine,” Martin said. “I’m sorry but I don’t get it.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser

CNMI, Hawaii Longliners Agree On Sharing Tuna Quota

April 20, 2016 — Senate Vice President Arnold I. Palacios says the CNMI and the Hawaii Longline Association have finalized a deal regarding the tuna-catch limit.

Palacios was with Gov. Ralph Torres who visited Hawaii to meet its governor and officials of the Hawaii Longline Association who, the senator said, agreed to an annual payment of $250,000 for three years.

Palacios said the deal had been on hold for six months.

Read the full story at the Pacific Islands Report

Hawaiian leaders seek expansion of marine conservation area

April 18, 2016 — HONOLULU — A group of Native Hawaiian leaders have urged President Barack Obama to expand what’s already one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world.

But the president of the Hawaii Longline Association said Friday the lobbying effort is using Hawaiian culture as an excuse to close off more waters to fishermen.

Papahanaumokuakea (pah-pah-HAH-now-moh-cuh-ah-cay-ah) Marine National Monument is a 140,000-square-mile area of the Pacific where remote islands, atolls, islets and coral reefs serve as habitat for some of the world’s most endangered species.

The region is also a sacred place in the history, culture and cosmology of Native Hawaiians.

“Mr. President, as an island boy from Hawaii, we trust that you understand the significance of the ocean to our islands,” said a letter signed by leaders of the expansion push.

They want Obama to expand the monument to the full 200 nautical-mile limit of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands exclusive economic zone while keeping the main Hawaiian islands outside the boundaries.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald

Hawaii’s Tuna Longliners Offer to Buy Additional Quota from Northern Mariana Islands

April 14, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said Monday he wants to “get as much as we can” from a proposed deal by Hawaii longliners to buy half of the CNMI’s tuna fishing quota for a couple of hundred thousand dollars per year, allowing them to fish past their annual catch limits if exhausted.

The Hawaii Longline Association wrote to Torres in February and offered a three-year deal—with $200,000 paid out each year—to allow their fishing vessels to catch up to 1,000 metric tons of bigeye tuna “against the CNMI catch limit,” Saipan Tribune learned. The offer is made on the expectation that Hawaii longliners would exhaust their own catch quota, and similar agreements with the CNMI have been made in the last several years.

The offered payment is not tied down to whether the longliners actually end up using the CNMI quota, Saipan Tribune learned, and the $200,000 would be paid without regard the amount of catch HLA has in any given year.

“I am trying to get as much as we can,” Torres said on Monday, “by meeting with our stakeholders in Hawaii and utilizing what we have here and seeing what we gave last year and what are giving up in the years coming.” Torres will be in Hawaii for three days and flew out yesterday.

Asked if he has received any information whether the offer was a “lowball,” Torres said the CNMI’s neighboring islands asked for $1 million “and that was shot down right away.”

“As much as we want a million dollars we will get as much as we can” so “that the industry continue to grow,” Torres said.

Still, an industry source from a neighboring island said the $200,000 price was “not enough.”

Using their formula to calculate market value of tons per yen or dollar, the source estimated a market value for the CNMI’s 1,000 metric tons at between $887,280 to $1.2 million.

The CNMI is allotted 1,000 metric tons for big eye tuna as part of regulations in for fishing in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean as managed by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

Office of the Governor spokesman Ivan Blanco earlier said that the CNMI is “actively reviewing available options including comparable market values from nearby island countries before an acceptance of the offer will be made.”

Department of Lands and Natural Resource Secretary Richard Seman, for his part, said they always do and hope for money but at the same time, “we want to be reasonable and extend our assistance to the Hawaii Longline Fishery Association who had been cut short by the overall international” regulations.

Asked if he thought the offer was market value or “a fair price,” Seman said it was not so much market value as “it is not based on what they catch.”

“They are just assuming that they catch that amount of quota. If they don’t catch anything, it is their loss,” he told reporters Monday.

Seman said the United States has been in the “forefront of compliance” under the rules that Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission has set up but it was “sad that [the U.S.] gets kind of shortchanged at the end of the day when it comes down to allocation” of fishing quota.

Seman said U.S. longliners are now using “its own territories’ quota” but added they are not going out and seeking other national quotas as compared to other longliners from China who are buying out some of Japan’s quota.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.