Saving Seafood

Hawaiian fisherman sues to restrict foreign fishing licenses

August 3, 2017 — HONOLULU — A Native Hawaiian fisherman is asking an environmental court to stop Hawaii officials from issuing commercial fishing licenses to those who aren’t legally admitted into the United States.

Malama Chun, a Maui resident who fishes as a cultural practice, filed an appeal on July 27 of a state Board of Land and Natural Resources decision denying his petition. Chun filed his petition in April in response to an Associated Press investigation that found hundreds of foreign fishermen confined to boats and some living in subpar conditions. Hawaii grants the foreign fishermen licenses to fish, but they aren’t allowed to enter the country.

The board, which regulates fishing licenses, denied the petition last month without a hearing. Chun didn’t show how not issuing the licenses would address his concerns about overfishing and cultural practices. His attorney, Lance Collins, said Tuesday that because the board made a decision without holding a hearing or conducting any fact-finding, the board must take all stated facts as true.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Times

U.S. Commerce Department, Fisheries Service Ask Court To Reconsider Finding On American Samoa Large Vessel Protection Area Case

May 12, 2017 — By holding that the Deeds of Cession require the United States to preserve American Samoan cultural fishing, the federal court created a new requirement that National Marine Fisheries Service’s fishing regulations protect “cultural fishing practices” in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) around American Samoa, according to federal defendants in the large vessel prohibited area (LVPA) lawsuit.

The federal defendants, including the US Commerce Department and NMFS, made the argument in its 99-page motion and support documents filed yesterday with the Honolulu federal court, which was requested to “reconsider and amend” its judgment “with respect to two issues — standing and remedy.”

Plaintiff is the Territory of American Samoa, through the Governor’s Office, or ASG.

US District Court Judge Leslie Kobayashi in March this year ruled in favor of American Samoa, saying that the NMFS’ decision in 2016 to reduce the LVPA in territorial waters is invalid and that NMFS’ adoption of the 2016 LVPA rule, which became effective on Feb. 3, 2016 “was arbitrary and capricious”.

The major focus of the plaintiff’s lawsuit centered around the two Deeds of Cession — 1900 Deed of Cession for Tutuila and Aunu’u islands and the 1904 Deeds of Cession for Manu’a islands — with the United States.

Read the full story at Pacific Islands Report 

Amendment to Billfish Conservation Act Would Shutdown U.S. Markets, WESPAC expresses opposition

April 4, 2017 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council: 

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council recently concluded its 169th meeting in Honolulu, during which S.396, an amendment to the Billfish Conservation Act (BCA), was discussed. The proposed amendment would shut down the long established U.S. market for U.S. fisheries operating within the Western Pacific Region (Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands).

North Pacific blue marlin, which comprises the largest component of non-swordfish billfish landings in the Western Pacific Region, is not experiencing overfishing nor is it in an overfished condition. In the Atlantic, blue marlin is both overfished and is subject to overfishing. Marlin and other billfish sent from Hawaii to the US mainland are required to have a Billfish Certificate of Eligibility (COE), which identifies the fishing vessel, its homeport and the port and date of offloading. Hawaii markets about 550,000 lbs. of billfish per year to the U.S. mainland, worth about $600,000 annually in wholesale value. The Western Pacific Region also has an industry of value added billfish products such as smoked marlin and marlin paté, jerky and sausages.

The Council voted to send a letter to the Secretary of Commerce on the stock status of Pacific billfish and the economic impact of the introduced amendment. The Council also noted that US mainland sport fishing tournaments target billfish and is requesting that the National Marine Fisheries Service  provide information on the estimated number of billfish killed in these US mainland tournaments and whether or not the billfish retained goes to local consumption.

Read the full letter to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross here

Feds to Reopen Papahanaumokuakea to Fishing?

March 27, 2017 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Management Council: 

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council concluded its three-day meeting in Honolulu with a suite of recommendations, many of which are focused on keeping U.S. fishing grounds open to sustainably managed U.S. fisheries.

The council includes the local fishery department directors from Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam and the CNMI, fishing experts appointed by the Governors and federal agencies involved in fishing-related activities.

Marine national monuments, national marine sanctuaries, other marine protected area designations and Department of Defense training are among the uses that are increasingly closing off fishing grounds in U.S. waters.

Council Chair Edwin A. Ebisui Jr. clarified that council communications to the administration about impacts of marine national monuments on fisheries are not lobbying.

Some environmental activists recently made misleading statements about this in regards to a letter to President Trump prepared on March 1, 2017, by the Council Coordination Committee or CCC. The CCC includes the chairs of the nation’s eight regional fishery management councils. The letter details the impact of designations of Marine National Monuments under the Antiquities Act in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and was submitted to the president after conferring with the NOAA Office of General Counsel.

Read the full story at The Hawai’i Free Press 

Hawaii bill targeting commercial fishing industry dies

March 2nd, 2017 — A Hawaii bill that sought to change the way commercial fishing licenses are granted died after industry representatives told lawmakers it would wreck the business.

The bill sought more oversight of the fishing industry, but that’s the role of the federal government, not the state, said state Sen. Brian Tanighuchi, chairman of the Senate Committee on International Affairs and the Arts.

Two committees including Taniguchi’s deferred the bill indefinitely Wednesday, killing it for the legislative session.

The bill sought to restrict commercial fishing licenses to people who are legally allowed to enter the U.S., a redundant move because that already is codified. But despite what’s currently in the law, the state issues fishing licenses to the men.

The bill also would have required fishing license applicants to appear in person, creating a logistical barrier because most of Hawaii’s foreign fishermen are confined to their boats. Supporters said that interaction would give foreign fishermen a chance to tell state officials if they were victims of human trafficking or having problems such as withheld wages.

“It’s hard to set up a whole government procedure to just maybe bump into that problem when you have a federal agency that’s actually supposed to enforce that,” Taniguchi said after the hearing.

The bill was introduced after an Associated Press investigation found some foreign fishermen working without most basic labor protections while catching premium seafood. The 2016 investigation also found that foreign fishermen were confined to the boats while docked in Honolulu.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Baynews9.com

Feds to Analyze Environmental Impacts of Western Pacific Longline Fisheries for Bigeye and Tuna

February 17, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — HONOLULU — The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced on Monday that it will prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) on the U.S. Pacific Island deep-set tuna longline fisheries, which target bigeye tuna.

The PEIS will analyze the environmental impacts of management of deep-set tuna longliners, which operate out of Hawaii, American Samoa, and the U.S. West Coast. The need for the proposed action is to manage deep-set tuna longline fisheries under an adaptive management framework that allows for timely management responses to changing environmental conditions, consistent with domestic and international conservation and management measures.

The PEIS will be developed in coordination with the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council based in Honolulu.

Tuna longline fisheries use two distinct gear types: shallow-set vessels target swordfish near the surface and deep-set vessels target tunas deeper than 100 meters.

The deep-set tuna longline fisheries have greater levels of vessel participation, fishing effort, catch, and revenue than the shallow-set fishery. NOAA Fisheries previously evaluated the effects of the shallow-set fishery, so it will not be included in this PEIS.

The primary deep-set tuna longline fisheries are the Hawaii and American Samoa longline fisheries. Access to the Hawaii longline fisheries is limited to 164 vessel permits, of which about 140 vessels are active. Of these active vessels, about 20 may also shallow-set during any given year. Most vessels in the Hawaii deep-set tuna longline fleet homeport in Hawaii and about 10 operate from ports on the U.S. west coast. These vessels target bigeye tuna.

Access to the American Samoa deep-set tuna fishery is limited to 60 permits. Historically, a few deep-set tuna longline vessels operated out of Guam and the CNMI, but these fisheries have been inactive since 2011.

“The PEIS is a proactive step in the management of deep-set tuna longline fisheries,” said Council Executive Director Kitty M. Simonds. “It streamlines environmental review for future management decisions and facilitates the ability of fisheries to adaptively respond to changing conditions.”

Management tools used for deep-set tuna longline fisheries include limited assess programs, vessel size limits, area constraints, observers, satellite-based vessel monitoring systems, gear configuration and specific handling and releasing bycatch methods.

Potential management issues include territorial bigeye tuna specifications and transfers, changes to permitting programs, and new gear requirements to further reduce bycatch.

Potential environmental, social and economic issues include the catch of target tuna and non-target (such as sharks) species, interactions with protected species, gear conflicts, and impacts on the ecosystem.

Public comments may be made at the scoping meetings listed below, sent electronically via the agency, or by mail to Michael D. Tosatto, Regional Administrator, NMFS Pacific Islands Region (PIR), 1845 Wasp Blvd., Bldg. 176, Honolulu, HI 96818.

Public scoping meetings on the PEIS will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. on Feb. 21 in Hilo and Feb. 23 in Honolulu, Hawaii; Feb. 28 in Utulei, March 1 in Tafuna and March 2 in Pago Pago, American Samoa; March 7 in Susupe, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI); and March 9 in Mangilao, Guam.

All comments must be received by April 14, 2017.

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

Endangered Hawaiian monk seal population rises to 1,400

January 25, 2017 — HONOLULU — The population of Hawaiian monk seals — one of the world’s most critically endangered marine mammals — has been increasing 3 percent a year for the past three years, federal wildlife officials said Tuesday.

There are now about 1,400 of the seals in the wild, said Charles Littnan, lead scientist of the Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“This is phenomenal, hopeful news for the population,” Littnan told reporters. “Yet we have a long way to go to recovery.”

The population has experienced increases in the past, including the mid-2000s, but Littnan characterized those as minor blips.

Hawaiian monk seals declined in numbers for years, most recently as juveniles struggled to compete for food with large fish and sharks in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, a mostly uninhabited stretch of tiny atolls that includes Midway.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Virginian-Pilot

NOAA plans to open federal waters in Pacific to fish farming

January 6, 2017 — HONOLULU — As traditional commercial fishing is threatening fish populations worldwide, U.S. officials are working on a plan to expand fish farming into federal waters around the Pacific Ocean.

The government sees the move toward aquaculture as a promising solution to overfishing and feeding a hungry planet. But some environmentalists say the industrial-scale farms could do more harm than good to overall fish stocks and ocean health.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is creating a plan to manage commercial fish farms in federal waters, the area of ocean from three to 200 miles offshore, around Hawaii and other Pacific islands.

The program is similar to one recently implemented by NOAA in the Gulf of Mexico. The farms in the Gulf and the Pacific would be the only aquaculture operations in U.S. federal waters, though there are smaller operations in state waters close to shore.

Fish farming has been practiced for centuries in Hawaii and around the world. But modern aquaculture, some environmentalists say, carries pollution risks and the potential for non-native farmed fish to escape and enter the natural ecosystem.

Most shellfish consumed in America comes from farms, and their methods are widely considered sustainable. However, some farms that grow carnivorous fish such as salmon have raised concerns about sustainability because they use wild-caught fish to feed the captive species.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Seattle Times

Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council Sends Letters to Obama on Impacts of Marine National Monuments

December 19, 2016 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

HONOLULU — The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council is hopeful that when President Obama arrives in Honolulu tomorrow, he will acknowledge the $100 million commercial fishing industry in Hawai‘i and the impacts on that fishery by his expansions of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument (MNM) in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) and the Pacific Remote Islands MNM, which includes nearby Johnston Atoll. The value of the Hawaii longline fishery is excess of $300 million when factoring in retail markets and support industries and their employees.

The National Marine Fisheries Service’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center has reported that the expanded Papahanuamokueakea MNM may account for a potential loss of about 2.5 million pounds per year of tuna and other pelagic species worth on average $8 million, more than $9 million in fishery support businesses (e.g., fuel, gear, ice, etc.), $4.2 million in household income and $0.5 million in tax revenue and affect more than 100 jobs. The impact will be much greater on fishermen who historically utilized the US waters around the NWHI as their primary fishing grounds as well as smaller boats that are restricted in their range. Given these economic impacts, the Council believes that prohibiting commercial fishing in this area should be phased in.

On Dec. 1, 2016, the Council sent its fifth letter to Obama about its concerns with the NWHI MNM expansion and a sixth letter about the impacts of the three other marine national monuments that have been proclaimed in the US Pacific Islands. The Rose Atoll, Pacific Remote Islands and Marianas Trench MNMs impact the fisheries of not only Hawai‘i but also American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) as well as local and US mainland seafood consumers. The Obama administration has not responded to any of the Council’s previous four letters, which were sent over the past nine months.

Presidential proclamations through the Antiquities Act have banned commercial fishing in 61 percent of US waters around the Hawaiian Islands and have placed 51 percent of US waters around the US Pacific Islands under MNM designation. The Antiquities Act requires that monuments be proclaimed for the smallest size needed for conservation of resources of scientific and cultural interest. Obama has invoked future climate change impacts on biodiversity as one of the primary reasons for the presidential action in his proclamations expanding the NWHI and Pacific Remote Islands MNMs.

Climate change impacts occur over much larger areas than contained in any marine monument. The Council believes climate change impacts will not be mitigated by prohibiting the commercial catch of a well-managed and enforced US fishery in discrete areas of US waters. Furthermore, the Council has repeatedly questioned the use of the Antiquities Act for marine conservation of tuna, billfish and other highly migratory species, which move well beyond the monument boundaries.

“The Antiquities Act process circumvents the National Environmental Policy Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, both of which require environmental, social and economic analysis and public input,” notes Council Executive Director Kitty M. Simonds.

Prior to the expansion of the NWHI monument, which spans an area four times the size of Texas, about 10 percent of the fishing effort of the Hawai‘i longline fleet were in these monument waters. Another 10 percent were in the US waters around nearby Johnston Atoll, which Obama closed to fishing when he expanded the Pacific Remote Islands MNM in 2014.

“The push for the monuments was driven not by popular demand but by a Washington, DC-based environmental organization, the Pew Environment Group, which has had the ear of successive presidents,” explains Council Chair Edwin Ebisui Jr. “A Pew funded study estimated that the Marianas Trench MNM would result in $10 million per year in direct spending, $5million per year in tax and the creation of 400 jobs. Needless to say, neither Guam nor the CNMI has seen any economic benefits from the monument. After seven years a monument management plan has not been completed by NOAA and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Now there is talk about overlaying the monument status with a National Marine Sanctuary designation.”

While the local governments have received no economic benefit from the monuments, NOAA and the US Fish and Wildlife Service have been receiving $3 million per year for “monument management,” notes the Council’s letter about the Marianas Trench, Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll MNMs. At the same time, the US Coast Guard and NOAA Office of Law Enforcement have not received additional funds or assets to increase patrols of the monument waters..

The Council was established by Congress in 1976 and has authority over fisheries seaward of state/territory waters in the US Pacific Islands pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Act. For more information and to download the letters, go to www.wpcouncil.org, email info@wpcouncil.org or phone (808) 522-8220.

Letter to Obama on Papahanaumokuakea

Letter to Obama on Rose Atoll, Marianas Trench and Pacific Remote Islands MNM

See the full release at WESPAC

MATTHEW DALY: Congress must help Hawaii fishermen confined to boats

December 7th, 2016 — Congress should act immediately to improve slave-like conditions for hundreds of foreign fishermen working in Hawaii’s commercial fleet, speakers at a congressional forum said Tuesday.

“These fishermen are treated like disposable people,” said Mark Lagon, a scholar at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, who told the forum the fishermen live like modern-day slaves. Crew members earn less than $1 per hour, and total costs for crews of nine or 10 men are less than the cost of ice to keep the fish fresh, Lagon said.

“Slavery is not just some abstract concept,” said Lagon, the former director of a State Department office to monitor and combat human trafficking.

Slavery “is something that touches our lives. It goes into our stores, and it goes into our mouths,” Lagon said.

Lagon was one of several speakers at a forum Tuesday on slavery and human rights abuses at sea. The forum, sponsored by Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee, followed an Associated Press investigation that found fishermen have been confined to vessels for years without basic labor protections.

The AP report found that commercial fishing boats in Honolulu employ hundreds of men from impoverished Southeast Asia and Pacific Island nations who catch swordfish, ahi tuna and other seafood sold at markets and restaurants nationwide. A legal loophole allows the men to work on American-owned, U.S-flagged boats without visas as long as they don’t set foot on shore.

Fishing “is used as a tool for slavery,” said Kathryn Xian, executive director of the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, a Honolulu-based advocacy group.

Read the op-ed at The Seattle Times