Saving Seafood

Petition: Save Hawaii Fisheries

June 2, 2016 — Petition the President of the United States to Not expand the outer boundary of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Moument from 50 nautical miles out to 200 nautical miles around the Northwest Hawaiian Islands.   This will have a devastating impact on small business, fisheries, and culture without justification or public input. Our Kauai Fishermen run the risk of loosing middle bank and key fish grounds.

Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument (PMNM).

Established in 2006 by Pres. George W. Bush, this marine protected area (MPA) currently encompasses the Northwestern Hawaiian Island (NWHI) chain, covering an area 100 miles wide and 1200 miles long. It sits within the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Hawaii’s waters, a swath of ocean that’s 400 miles wide and includes both the PMNM and the Main Hawaiian Islands.

Half of the bottomfish for Hawaii and most of the lobster came from the area within the PMNM, prior to the establishment of the monument. Fishing boats operated in that area for decades with very little ecological impact. Early in the 21st Century, it was decided that the near-pristine condition of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands should be protected indefinitely, and that was the rationale for creating the PMNM.

Now there are groups that are asking Pres. Obama to expand the PMNM to include the entire EEZ around the NWHI. Imagine an area that would be as long as the distance between the borders of Canada and Mexico, and wider than the state of California.

Read the full petition at Change.org

Hawaii Lawmakers To Obama: Don’t Grow Marine Monument

May 13, 2016 — Amid the flurry of final votes on hundreds of bills last week, Hawaii lawmakers privately weighed whether to sign a letter to President Obama that Rep. James Tokioka was circulating during the last few days of the legislative session.

The letter called on the president not to consider expanding the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, stating that “there is no scientific justification or conservation benefit in doing so.”

In all, 30 House lawmakers, including Speaker Joe Souki, signed the May 3 letter. Just days earlier, Hawaii Senate President Ron Kouchi sent Obama a nearly identical one.

This opposition, which lawmakers kept out of public view, has been overshadowed by a strong public push to expand the monument, officially designated by President George W. Bush as Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in 2007.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

CNMI Gov: No To Expansion Of Hawaii Marine Monument

May 11, 2016 — SAIPAN, CNMI — Governor Ralph Torres does not support the expansion of the marine national monument in Hawaii, citing the CNMI’s disappointing experience with the Marianas Trench monument.

The governor in an interview on Tuesday said he wrote to President Obama to raise some concerns regarding the proposed expansion of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in Hawaii also known as the Northwestern Hawaiian monument.

“I don’t think I’m supporting it,” he said. “What we were offered here [for the Marianas monument] was not the one given to us. The proponents mentioned hundreds of millions of dollars and many jobs, but none of those have occurred.”

Read the full story at the Pacific Islands Report

Considering Pacific marine monument expansion

May 9, 2016 — HONOLULU — A Native Hawaiian proposal that calls for the expansion of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument is picking up steam and this week a delegation from the Obama Administration is meeting with stakeholders to discuss the possibility.

The waters around Kauai and Niihau, however, would be exempt from the expansion, according to news release sent to The Garden Island on Thursday.

“As Native Hawaiians, our core identity and survival is tied to the ocean. The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is where we believe life originated,” said Kekuewa Kikiloi, Chair, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Native Hawaiian Cultural Working Group. “All resources in nature – from corals to sharks – have cultural significance for Native Hawaiians and are an embodiment of our ancestors. By expanding Papahanaumokuakea we can help protect our cultural ocean-scapes and show future generations that preservation of the environment is preservation of our cultural traditions.”

Read the full story at the Garden Island

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.

Pacific News Minute: Report Puts Cost of Illegal Fishing in the Pacific Lower than Believed

HAWAII (March 17, 2016) — The cost of illegal fishing in the western pacific may be much lower than believed.  Previous estimates ranged up to $2.4-billion dollars a year.  But this week, an independent, European funded study puts that figure at about a billion dollars a year, most of that in tuna.  And, as we hear from Neal Conan in the Pacific News minute, the study also challenges beliefs, as to who’s responsible.

“We imagine vast fleets of pirate boats,” said James Movick, director General of the Forum Fisheries Agency. “The evidence doesn’t support that.”

The evidence was gathered over two years by an Australian company -MRAG Asia Pacific which concluded that the biggest culprits are licensed boats that underreport their catch.  It put losses to pirates at just 4% of the total.

Read the full story at Hawaii Public Radio

NOAA Deputy Assistant Administrator Lauds US Fishery Management Councils

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Honolulu, HI — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

Samuel D. Rauch III, NOAA Fisheries Deputy Assistant Administrator for Regulatory Programs, praised the U.S. Regional Fishery Management Councils as the “key for the success” of both “environmental and economic progress” in the nation’s fisheries. “That’s a difficult thing to accomplish,” Rauch said, “but we have the statistics to prove it.”

Rauch made these remarks today during the start of the three-day meeting of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council at Fuller Hall, YWCA, 1040 Richards St., Honolulu. The Council’s fishery decision-making includes input from state, federal and interested stakeholders in an open, scientific process. There are ample opportunities for public comment as well as recommendations from various Council advisory groups.

Rauch noted that a recent peer-reviewed study showed that U.S. fisheries managed under the Council process scored extremely high when compared against the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) guidance on seafood sustainability certification (www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa). Speaking about President Obama’s Task Force on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, Rauch said there are requirements to collect more information from U.S. fleets than foreign fleets, some of which import fish into the United States. He hoped that the outcomes of the Task Force would lead to better traceability of both foreign and domestic fisheries.

Kitty Simonds, executive director of the Western Pacific Council, noted that both the Hawaii and American Samoa longline fisheries, managed under the Council, rated more than 90 percent compliant with the UN FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.

In a presentation on NOAA Fisheries’ standardized bycatch reporting methodology proposed rule, Rauch said, “We often heard that we don’t give credit to the Councils for all the bycatch work they have done.” Public comments on the proposed rule are being accepted until June 3. Email nmfs.bycatch@noaa.gov or go to www.fisheries.noaa.gov/sfa/bycatch.

Simonds said the Western Pacific Council completed its bycatch policy in 2003. She also said that protected species bycatch in the Western Pacific Region has been reduced by more than 90 percent for turtles and seabirds. As for non-regulatory bycatch, which fishermen are not required to release, only lancet fish is not being marketed for human consumption.

The Council reconvenes tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. For more on the meeting and a complete agenda, go to www.wpcouncil.org, email info@wpcouncil.org or phone (808) 522-8220. The Council was established by Congress under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1976 to manage domestic fisheries operating seaward of State waters around Hawai’i, American Samoa, Guam, the CNMI and the US Pacific Island Remote Island Areas. Recommendations by the Council that are regulatory in nature are transmitted to the Secretary of Commerce for final approval.

Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council: Appointees by the Secretary of Commerce from nominees selected by American Samoa, CNMI, Guam and Hawai`i governors: Michael Duenas, Guam Fishermen’s Cooperative Association (Guam) (vice chair); Edwin Ebisui (Hawai`i) (chair); Michael Goto, United Fishing Agency Ltd. (Hawai`i); John Gourley, Micronesian Environmental Services (CNMI) (vice chair); Julie Leialoha, biologist (Hawai`i); Dr. Claire Tuia Poumele, Port Administration (American Samoa); McGrew Rice, commercial and charter fisherman (Hawai`i) (vice chair); and William Sword, recreational fisherman (American Samoa) (vice chair). Designated state officials: Suzanne Case, Hawai`i Department of Land and Natural Resources; Dr. Ruth Matagi-Tofiga, American Samoa Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources; Richard Seman, CNMI Department of Lands and Natural Resources; and Matt Sablan, Guam Department of Agriculture. Designated federal officials: Matthew Brown, USFWS Pacific Islands Refuges and Monuments Office; Michael Brakke, US Department of State; RADM Vincent B. Atkins, US Coast Guard 14th District; and Michael Tosatto, NMFS Pacific Islands Regional Office.

Adorable ‘ghost-like’ octopus spotted on sea floor near Hawaii

March 5, 2016 — For a team of federal researchers looking for geologic data on the ocean floor, the pale, ghostly appearance of a unique octopus species inspired diverse reactions.

“That animal is not in the … guide,” said a researcher during the live-feed video from the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research. “In the immortal words of Taylor Swift, I have never – like ever – seen that one.”

They found the well-armed sea creature, believed to be a new species of octopus, sitting on flat rock 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) below sea level near Hawaii, Michael Vecchione, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) zoologist, wrote in a statement.

“This animal was particularly unusual because it lacked the pigment cells, called chromatophores, typical of most cephalopods, and it did not seem very muscular,” Mr. Vecchione wrote. “This resulted in a ghostlike appearance, leading to a comment on social media that it should be called Casper, like the friendly cartoon ghost.”

Vecchione saw what he called a “remarkable little octopod” while monitoring the video feed from the remotely operated vehicle Deep Discover, which launched from the NOAA’s only federally funded vehicle for deep-sea research, the ship Okeanos Explorer, Christine Dell’Amore reported for National Geographic. 

Read the full story at The Christian Science Monitor

WPRFMC Director Testifies for Council Involvement in Tuna Negotiations

March 2, 2016 (Saving Seafood) — The US fishery management councils need a seat at the table when international negotiations on tuna treaties are taking place, according to Kitty Simonds, Executive Director of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRFMC). Ms. Simonds, testifying at a hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee’s Subcommittee on Water, Power, and Oceans, spoke in favor of H.R. 4576, the Ensuring Access to Pacific Fisheries Act. Among other provisions, the Act would require U.S. Commissioners to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Convention (WCPFC) to “advocate positions that minimize disadvantages to U.S. fishermen in relation to other foreign entities.”

Ms. Simonds testified on the need to modify how the U.S. approaches international negotiations, noting how, to date, the U.S. fleet has been disadvantaged by the implementation of the WCPFC.

“Profitable, well-managed US fisheries in the Western Pacific and Central Ocean, such as the Hawai‘i longline and US purse seine fisheries, are in danger of being lost forever due to geopolitics and being on the losing end of WCPFC negotiations. Couple this with an uneven playing field with regard to enforcement and domestic implementation of Commission measures and it is no wonder that these fisheries face a perilous future,” she said.

NOAA and the Obama Administration oppose further involvement by the regional councils in international negotiations. When asked about the Administration’s opposition to council involvement by Subcommittee Chair John Fleming, Ms. Simonds stated “the United States manages fisheries through regional fishery management councils. That’s why we need to be at the table at any fisheries commission.”

Read the testimony from Kitty Simonds here

Watch the opening testimony from Kitty Simonds here

Watch Kitty Simonds further discuss H.R. 4576 here