November 7, 2025 — A new study has found that deep-sea mining operations threaten ocean food chains, potentially impacting valuable fisheries.
The study, led by researchers from the University of Hawai’i, focused on the effects of particle plumes ejected into ocean water by deep-sea mining operations.
August 22, 2025 — The University of Hawaiʻi (UH) has launched a new sustainable fisheries initiative to conduct research and train up a new generation of leaders who can steward fisheries around the islands and in the surrounding Pacific Ocean.
As part of the initiative, the university has brought on 8 new faculty members with expertise in oceanography, economic, Indigenous coastal management, and other fisheries-related specialties. The faculty will be spread out across six schools and colleges, but they’ll work together to develop a graduate program focused on sustainable fisheries management and advancing research on island-ocean systems, UH said in a release.
August 21, 2025 — The University of Hawaiʻi is launching a major initiative to advance fisheries research, education and training, ensuring sustainable management for Hawaiʻi and the Pacific. The new program leverages the expertise of eight new faculty members to develop a graduate program that focuses on both Western science and Indigenous knowledge, training the next generation of leaders for sustainable Pacific fisheries.
Fisheries in Hawaiʻi are distinct in that they include a variety of sectors ranging from the open ocean longline fishery, which is the sixth largest fishery in monetary value in the U.S., to community managed fishponds or loko iʻa. Importantly, the majority of nearshore fisheries in Hawaiʻi are non-commercial, which requires unique considerations for management. This program seeks to build on existing work by faculty and practitioners across the UH System to understand the unique contributions of these diverse commercial and non-commercial fisheries to the economic, social, and cultural well-being of Hawaiʻi to ensure their longevity.
Management strategies from the U.S. continent often fail in the Pacific Islands because they were designed for cold-water, industrial fisheries. Pacific fisheries are different—they operate in warm tropical waters with diverse species and fishing gear, and with Indigenous Pacific Island communities. The Pacific Island region is multinational and has comparatively less scientific data, requiring a locally developed approach to ensure they can be sustained for generations.
July 18, 2025 — Concerning news for coral reefs came out this week in University of Hawaiʻi research, while on the same day long-awaited protections for critical habitats offered some hope.
A paper published Monday in the Journal of Geophysical Research found the oceans around Hawai’i will become significantly more acidic throughout the 21st century, based on climate modeling.
That could do enormous harm to ocean organisms that form hard shells and skeletons, such as shellfish and coral, adding another layer of stress for already struggling species. And the scenarios UH researchers used for their models show to what extent carbon emission-driven climate change will make matters worse.
“Until about 2050, it doesn’t matter which scenario we’re on; we are on a path that has been built up over the last 100-plus years,” said Brian Powell, one of the four UH physicists who worked on the paper.
After 2050, however, he said the global carbon output will determine which scenario becomes reality.
“We don’t have to be on the business-as-usual track,” Powell said. “We can try to do better.”
On Monday, the National Marine Fisheries Service also announced protections for habitats around the world critical to endangered coral species, including in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. The announcement came over a decade after the islands’ initial endangered designation.
David Derrick, one of the lawyers with the Center for Biological Diversity who sued to provide those protections, said that the Endangered Species Act played a vital role in their work. According to him, the law “gives groups leverage to hold the (government’s) … feet to the fire.”
April 4, 2025 — Major investments are needed for core research in ocean science and to upgrade and replace infrastructure to support use-inspired, basic research in ocean studies, said a new report published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). For more than two years, Shimi Rii, faculty member at the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology in the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), served as a member of the NASEM committee that authored the consensus study report intended to inform the next decade of research and innovation.
“In this report, we challenge ourselves and the broader ocean science community, by 2035, to establish a new paradigm to forecast ocean processes at scales relevant to human well-being,” said Rii. “What this means, is that now is the time to do science differently than we have always done it—through creative partnerships, innovative endeavors and inclusion of multiple perspectives to enhance scientific advancements.”
June 9, 2023 — Social media is an effective data-collection tool when studying the activities of recreational fisheries, reducing the limitations of cost and timeliness associated with traditional research methods, according to a new study.
University of Hawai’i at Hilo Adjunct Associate Professor and Hawai’i Cooperative Fishery Research Unit Leader Tim Grabowski was the lead author of the paper, which was published in March 2023 in Aquatic Biology.
June 16, 2022 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:
The Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee discussed a report written by the area-based management subcommittee of the Council Coordination Committee (CCC) to address the Biden Administration’s America the Beautiful initiative. The initiative’s goal is to “conserve” 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. The purpose of the report was to take inventory of existing managed areas in the U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ) relative to the 30×30 initiative and discuss pros and cons of area-based management.
The subcommittee developed a draft definition of conservation areas to identify qualifying regions since none exists elsewhere. The Western Pacific Region (WPR) is the largest managed ocean area (~1.7 million square nautical miles) in the United States, and more than 60% of its waters (1,032,825 nm2) meet the America the Beautiful criteria. The WPR alone already meets 29% of the initiative’s goal.
The Pacific Remote Islands Coalition recently proposed to expand no-take areas of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument to the entire U.S. EEZ, making it the largest marine protected area in the world.
The SSC noted it doesn’t make sense scientifically, doesn’t protect diverse habitats and creates unbalanced regional representation, leading to strong socioeconomic impacts and undermining biodiversity goals.
The SSC suggested the Council request a comprehensive evaluation of the unintended consequences of the proposed expansion and that any measures be evaluated through a transparent and public process prior to implementation. SSC members clarified unintended consequences of the expansion range from displacement of U.S. fisheries by competing foreign fisheries to reduced supply of U.S.-caught fish to the American Samoa cannery.
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The SSC also discussed the development of a University of Hawai‘i (UH) Fisheries Program, which may be based on a Coastal and Marine Resources graduate program approved (but not enacted) in 2005. Fisheries play a large role in the culture, food security, and economic development of the WPR. A fisheries education program is needed to build capacity for employment and professional development in Hawai‘i and the U.S. Pacific Territories. Academic and professional development infrastructure is lacking outside of the continental United States.
SSC members expressed support for the program and noted Council staff will contact faculty and administrators at UH to express support and assistance. The SSC recommended revisiting this issue at its September 2022 meeting.
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The SSC heard an update on Equity and Environmental Justice (EEJ) activities in the WPR, including a CCC working group report (https://tinyurl.com/EEJReport) that defines EEJ issues within a U.S. fisheries management context, and a WPR EEJ in Fisheries Management workshop. The workshop included discussion on the Council’s impact and contributions in advancing EEJ for WPR fisheries. Participants provided insights into how the Council can leverage several tools—fund, implement, empower, and advocate—to effect change.
The SSC also discussed the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) draft EEJ strategy, which identified barriers to EEJ and how the agency plans to address issues in underserved communities. This will lead to step-down implementation plans at the regional level to create a framework to incorporate EEJ into NMFS’ daily activities. SSC members highlighted the importance of inclusive governance and noted several barriers, including system complexity, overuse of jargon, and the public’s negative attitude and distrust of the process.
December 14, 2021 — Incredibly rich and diverse deep coral and sponge communities are thriving in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, researchers concluded after a 20-day deep-sea research expedition.
The team of NOAA, Ocean Exploration Trust, researchers and partners returned from the voyage on Dec. 6. What they encountered during the course of their work blew them away.
“The sheer size and density of some of these ancient sponges boggles my mind. This expedition shows me what a treasure we have in the monument,” said Dr. Christopher Kelley, retired University of Hawai’i researcher and one of the leaders of the expedition. “In my 21 years exploring the deep-sea environment of Hawai’i, and well over 100 submersible and ROV dives in the archipelago, the communities on these seamounts have to rank as some of the best I have seen.”
The research team reported their findings in a press release issued Monday, Dec. 13.
December 13, 2021 — On a Sunday afternoon in Honolulu, a school of shoppers swirl around an island of metal and ice covered in freshly caught local fish of all colors and sizes. Between rows of akule, tai snapper, and opelu there are piles of five to six inch long snapper gleaming bright yellow with baby blue stripes, caught off the west coast of O’ahu, called taʻape. The army of workers behind the counter at Brian’s Seafood Market unload more as each stack depletes, topping them with white laminated signs that say, “New Catch” or “Sale.” Some simply say, “Fresh Ta’ape” with different prices attached to denote different sizes. On the backside of the counter workers pass over full bags, freshly scaled and gutted, for customers to bring home to their family or mom-and-pop restaurant to fry whole and serve with chili sauce and shoyu.
Brian’s is only one of a handful of markets, so far, that sell this fish. Taʻape (in Tahitian), also known as blue-striped snapper, was once thought to be a “trash fish” in Hawaiʻi. Some locals would catch or spear these one to two pound reef fish to bring home for dinner, while most fishermen would throw them back. In recent years that stigma has started to shift as conservationists and local chefs began touting taʻape as a sustainable food source.
“Residents and visitors of Hawaii eat a lot of seafood, approximately 12.6 more pounds per capita than the U.S. as a whole,” the University of Hawaiʻi reported. Since taʻape is an invasive species, catching them for consumption provides an opportunity for fishers to help protect reefs, earn income and improve food security. It also offers chefs a delicious, more affordable option for their menus.
The issue with popularizing an unpopular fish however, is that most people do not know enough about it yet to feel comfortable selling or eating it. This is slowly changing as local chefs increase demand and word gets out.
October 12, 2021 — Protecting the world’s oceans and its resources could be coming closer to reality as countries gather this week in China for the United Nations Conference on Biological Diversity.
Nations are expected to start keeping promises to protect 30% of the world’s oceans, including implementing or pledging support for the implementation of more Marine Protected Areas around the world.
The conference, to be held in Kunming, China starting Monday, follows a collective pledge from more than 100 countries to protect at least 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030. Climate change was a major theme during the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September, and the goal remains lofty though conservationists remain hopeful.
The global Marine Protected Area Atlas that covers some 18,000 MPAs shows just 2.7% of the ocean is fully or highly protected from fishing impacts. A previous goal of protecting 10% by 2020 was missed.
And though it was expected that some nations would up their MPA coverage, management was still an issue, according to University of Hawaii marine researcher Alan Friedlander.
Friedlander was among a group of marine experts who called for more effective management strategies — a blueprint for future MPA management — as there was a broad range of interpretations and “not all MPAs are created equal.”
Management was of equal importance to designation, he said.
“It’s a big difference between what’s strongly protected and what’s declared protected,” said Friedlander. “We really need to have strong protection if the goal is biodiversity.”
Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat