Saving Seafood

Effort to expand Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument gets pushback

September 26, 2022 — A Hawaii-based coalition’s effort to expand the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument is getting pushback by the fishery council created to oversee that area of the Pacific.

The national monument makes up nearly 500,000 square miles of open ocean, coral reefs and island habitats south of Hawaii. The Pacific Remote Islands Coalition wants to extend the monument around two sets of islands from 50 miles to 200 miles.

“Places like these remote islands, atolls and reefs represent some of the priority areas that we need to protect that would have minimal impact to other interests, such as fishing,” said coalition member Kekuewa Kikiloi.

But the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, meeting in Honolulu this week, has taken a hard stand against the proposal.

Read the full article at Hawaii News Now

HAWAII: Hawaii Longline Association earns Marine Stewardship Council Certification

September 23, 2022 — Celebrating 70 years in operation, the United Fishing Agency has become the anchor of commercial fishing on Oahu.

Up to a 100,000 pounds of raw fish can be auctioned off each morning. And in consideration of such high volumes, standards for fishing sustainability are constantly evolving.

The Hawaii Longline Association (HLA) oversees the operation of 145 local longline vessels, and has been subject to independent observer coverage to maintain the protection of wildlife and manage gear and bait procedures.

Read the full article KITV

WPRFMC Scientists Concerned with Lack of Data to Support Marine Monument Expansion

September 21, 2022 — Like strong fishing regulations, successful closed areas should rely on solid science.

But scientists for the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council are questioning the information supporting a proposed monument expansion in remote waters.

The Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee last week heard a presentation by Bob Richmond, University of Hawai‘i professor and coauthor on the proposal to expand the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. Richmond provided information related to the scientific merits of the proposed expansion.

However, SSC members noted in their discussion the overwhelming lack of data to support theorized benefits and an analytical framework to assemble data in the proposal evaluation.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Council to consider fishing rules in marine monument

September 20, 2022 — Possible changes to fishing regulations within the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument could allow cultural fishing practices, although such changes are also viewed as “harmful ” to Native Hawaiian traditions.

This week the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, or Wespac, in its, will consider options in a list of alternative commercial and noncommercial fishing regulations in the monument.

The Papahanaumokuakea monument, located around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, is one of the largest fully protected conservation areas in the world, covering around 580, 000 square miles of ocean.

There has been no fishing activity in the monument since former President Barack Obama established a “monument expansion area (MEA )” in 2016 that prohibited commercial fishing. Noncommercial fishing is allowed, but there isn’t a permitting process in place to give fishers entry into those waters to fish.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has since initiated a process to consider designating the monument as a national marine sanctuary, and Wespac was given an opportunity to draft fishing regulations for it.

Most of the alternative regulations under consideration would codify the MEA boundaries and ban commercial fishing, so much of the discussion about them has revolved around the establishment of a permitting and reporting system for various noncommercial activities, including fishing for cultural, recreational and research purposes.

Read the full article at Yahoo News

First Hawaiian fishery achieves MSC certification

September 19, 2022 — The Hawaii Longline Association’s (HLA) swordfish, bigeye, and yellowfin tuna fishery, has achieved Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification, making it the first fishery in the U.S. state of Hawaii to achieve MSC certification.

“HLA is proud to receive the certification as it is recognition of the fleet’s stringent management and monitoring regime. We believe our fleet produces the best-quality and highest level of monitored tuna in the world. We look forward to working with MSC, WPRFMC, NMFS and others on the continued and long-term production of sustainably and responsibly harvested fish landed by our fleet,” HLA Executive Director Eric Kingma said.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

HAWAII: Hawaii Longline Association certified for sustainable fishing

September 14, 2022 — The Hawaii Longline Association has achieved a globally recognized certification for sustainable fishing by the Marine Stewardship Council.

The MSC Fisheries Standard, which the council says is the world’s most recognized benchmark for sustainability, follows a 16-month certification process that assesses if a fishery is well-managed, with three core principles it has to meet: sustainable fish stocks, minimizing environmental impact and effective fisheries management.

Read the full article at Star Advertiser 

Mission to remove tons of garbage from marine sanctuary underway

September 14, 2022 –A million-dollar mission to remove garbage from an important marine sanctuary is underway.

Kevin O’Brien, founder of Papahanaumokuakea Marine Debris Project, and his crew of 16 are preparing for their fifth mission to clean the Papahanaumokuakea Marine Sanctuary in the Northern Pacific, more than 1,000 miles away from Honolulu.

“There’s the main Hawaiian islands,” O’Brien explained pointing at a map. “Big Island, Kauai — and then we’re headed up here. This little string of tiny dots is Papahanaumokuakea.”

They depart Thursday for the month-long expedition.

According to O’Brien, they’ll likely return with garbage weighing as much as a small commercial jet airplane. He said it will fill three shipping containers and be piled in a huge mountain of garbage on the deck.

Read the full article at KHON

NTSB: Electrical fault suspected in Hawaii longliner fire

September 9, 2022 — An electrical fault likely triggered a wheelhouse fire that doomed the Hawaii-based longliner Blue Dragon in November 2021, according to a new report from the National Transportation Safety Board.

The agency’s findings stress two major “lessons learned” from the Blue Dragon case: The danger of substandard electrical systems, and the value of personal locator beacons (PLBs) as a safety supplement to emergency position indicating radio beacons (EPIRBs).

Both types of beacons played a critical role in the survival and speedy rescue of the Blue Dragon crew after the fire cut off their wheelhouse communications and knocked out vessel power, the report notes.

The 85-foot steel vessel departed Honolulu Oct. 25 with a crew of six and a National Marine Fisheries Service observer, to fish for swordfish and tuna. At around 11:30 p.m. Nov. 9 the crew was preparing to retrieve the gear about 350 miles off the coast of California, as the owner-captain napped in the wheelhouse, according to the NTSB report narrative.

The observer entered the wheelhouse, discovered a fire burning under the controls console and woke the captain. The observer discharged a dry chemical fire extinguisher into the fire, alerted the crew, and a deckhand arrived with another fire extinguisher.

“The deckhand described the forward bulkhead as being on fire all the way to the overhead of the wheelhouse,” the NTSB report states. “When the remaining crew came to assist, they opened the wheelhouse doors, which, according to the NMFS observer, appeared to fan the flames. While the crew was attempting to fight the fire, the NMFS observer and a deckhand retrieved the 10-person life raft and the vessel’s GNSS-enabled EPIRB from above the wheelhouse. They carried the life raft aft to the vessel’s stern and deployed it into the water.”

The observer went to his berth to retrieve a bag with his NMFS-issued survival suit, EPIRB, PLB, and satellite emergency notification device (SEND), a Garmin inReach. He used the SOS button on the Garmin and texted a “fire” message, manually activated the Blue Dragon’s EPIRB and his own PLB.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman