Wespac Archives - Saving Seafood

Federally Managed Fisheries in US Pacific Islands Face a Mixed Future

March 22, 2019 — HONOLULU — The following was released yesterday by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

Executive Director Kitty Simonds (center) with WPRFMC members (from left) Vice Chair John Gourley (Northern Mariana Islands), Chair Archie Soliai (American Samoa), RAdm. Kevin Lunday (commander of the 14th US Coast Guard District) and Vice Chairs Dean Sensui (Hawai‘i), Christinne Lutu-Sanchez (American Samoa) and Michael Duenas (Guam).

Federal fishery managers concluded their meeting in Honolulu today after dealing since Tuesday with a mixed bag of good and bad news about the future of fisheries in Hawai‘i and the US Pacific islands.

On the good side, a 2018 stock assessment estimates the Hawai‘i Kona crabs maximum sustainable yield at 73,069 pounds. The fishery has reported catch below 3,000 pounds in 2015 and 2016, indicating the potential for a lot of growth. However, participants have left the fishery (which landed 70,000 pounds in the 1970s) since the State of Hawai‘i banned the retention of female Kona crabs. The Council recommended that the Hawai‘i Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) record female crab and minimum size discards separately on the fisherman trip reports to provide a more comprehensive record of commercial catch. It also requested that DAR remove the statute that prohibits take of female Kona crabs and consider revised regulations to extend or shift the closed season to protect berried females.

Other good news is that a recent economic report by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) found the Hawai‘i charter fishery generated close to $50 million in gross sales and supported nearly 900 jobs statewide in 2011. The Council encouraged NMFS to maintain a regular schedule of economic evaluations and monitoring of the fisheries in the Pacific islands.

On the bleaker side, the Council discussed the ongoing UN Intergovernmental Conference on Biodiversity beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), which is considering a framework to establish fishing closures on the high seas. The Council asked the Department of State, which has a non-voting representative on the Council, to exempt high seas fisheries targeting tuna and tuna-like species from any potential high seas closures established under the new BBNJ convention. About 70 percent of the fishing effort of the Hawai‘i based longline fishery is on the high seas.

Read the full release at the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council

Fishermen Identify Projects to Improve Fisheries Development in the U.S. Pacific Islands

March 20, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Projects to develop fisheries topped the list of needs identified by fishermen from Hawai’i, American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands during their March 15 and 16 meeting in Honolulu. The group, which constitutes the Advisory Panel of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, also highlighted the importance of fishing to the communities of each of the island areas.

Advisory panel members said the social and economic value of the local and regional fisheries also needs to better communicated.

“The Council welcomes the ideas and contributions of the Advisory Panel,” Council Chair Archie Soliai said in a press release. “This is a challenging time for fisheries, and the AP has a lot of work to do.”

The Council will consider the AP recommendations when it meets this weaek at the YWCA Fuller Hall in Honolulu.

Some of the suggested projects and activities from the AP include:

fishery demonstration projects;
expanded use of technology to collect fishery data;
characterization of existing fisheries in Hawai’i; and
improved fishing opportunities in Guam and the CNMI through improved fish aggregation devices, fishery access and reduction of shark depredation.

AP members include representatives from diverse fisheries, such as spearfish, longline, bottomfish, charter boat, subsistence and the fishery media. The AP is mandated by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the Council said in the release.

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

Hawaii: More Tuna For Hawaii Fishing Boats In 2018

December 27, 2017 — Hawaii’s longline fishermen didn’t get everything they were hoping for at the most recent annual meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, an international body that sets tuna catch limits for the U.S., several Asian countries and small island developing states.

But they did come out of the weeklong meeting in the Philippines with an agreement that will let the Honolulu-based fleet fish for an additional 400 tons of bigeye in 2018. Their quota next year will be about 3,500 tons, the same level as 2016.

Eric Kingma of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, a quasi-governmental body that manages 1.5 million square miles of U.S. waters, described the new catch limit as “suboptimal” for the roughly 140 longline vessels in Hawaii that target bigeye tuna for fresh sashimi markets and restaurants.

He said the measure does recognize the financial arrangements that Hawaii’s longliners have had the past few years with three U.S. Pacific island territories to extend their catch by up to 3,000 tons. The deals involve paying $250,000 into a fisheries development fund managed by Wespac in exchange for the ability to fish for an additional 1,000 tons and attribute it to that territory.

In 2017, the U.S. longline fleet hit its annual limit of 3,138 tons within the first eight months of the season, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service. The fishermen then caught an additional 1,000 tons by the first week of December that they attributed to the Northern Marianas and have continued fishing for another 1,000 tons under their agreement with American Samoa. There is a similar arrangement with Guam should they need it, but that doesn’t seem necessary this year.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

WESPAC’s Work To ‘Define Cultural Fishing’ Could Impact American Samoa

June 29, 2017 — An attorney with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has hinted to a federally established group that its work to define cultural fishing will have an impact on future issues pertaining to fisheries in American Samoa.

One of the main issues on the agenda at last week’s three-day meeting of the Western Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Council, held in Honolulu, dealt with defining cultural fishing in American Samoa, following a Honolulu federal judge’s decision in March, that the US National Marine Fisheries Services failed to consider the Deeds of Cession, when implementing the 2016 amendment to the Large Vessel Prohibited Area in territorial waters.

US District Court Judge Leslie Kobayashi said the NMFS’ 2016 LVPA Rule disregards its obligations under the Deeds of Cession to “protect and preserve cultural fishing rights in American Samoa.” (The Deeds for Tutuila and Aunu’u were signed in 1900, and 1904 for Manu’a — with the US.)

There were several discussions during the Council’s three-day meeting on ways to define cultural fishing and what is considered cultural fishing, as well as protecting and preserving cultural fishing in the territory.

What was clear from the speakers and answers from NOAA officials as well as others, is that ASG, the local fishing community, and others in the territory need to be consulted for a final definition.

Among the many questions raised, were those from American Samoa Council member, Christinna Lutu-Sanchez, who wanted to know if once the cultural fishing definition is finalized, would that cultural fishing definition apply to anyone fishing within the LVPA, and not necessarily just the US longline fleet based in American Samoa.

Read the full story at Pacific Islands Report

Hawaii Loses A Fishery Council Seat After Governor’s Fumble

June 29, 2017 — Hawaii managed to hold onto one of the two at-large seats it has historically held on the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council thanks to the governor of the Northern Mariana Islands nominating someone from the Aloha State.

Edwin Ebisui, a lawyer, part-time commercial fisherman and the council’s current chair, has been appointed to serve another three-year term, the U.S. Commerce Department announced Wednesday.

The other at-large seat will go to commercial tuna fisherman Eo Mokoma of American Samoa, who will replace Kona charter fisherman McGrew Rice after his term ends Aug. 11. Mokoma operates the only active longline boat in the territory, an alia catamaran, according to the nomination letter American Samoa Gov. Lolo Moliga sent to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Gov. David Ige’s administration twice missed deadlines to submit to federal officials a list of nominees to fill two of the at-large seats that are expiring on the council, which manages fish stocks in nearly 1.5 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean.

The Commerce Department, which oversees the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was left to choose from the lists of nominees provided by the governors of American Samoa and the Northern Marianas. Guam, the other U.S. territory represented on the council, which has 13 voting members, did not nominate anyone.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

Blown Deadlines Weaken Hawaii’s Voice On Federal Fishery Council

June 28, 2017 — Hawaii will soon have less influence in setting national policies that affect everything from commercial fishing to endangered species in nearly 1.5 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean.

Gov. David Ige’s administration twice missed deadlines to submit to federal officials a list of names to fill two at-large terms that expire in August on the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council.

The seats have historically been held by Hawaii residents. Instead, they will be filled from the lists provided by the governors of American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. Guam, the other U.S. territory represented on the council, did not nominate anyone.

Environmentalists see it as a missed opportunity for Ige to rebalance the council, which has long weighed heavier on the side of the commercial fishing industry than conservation. Others view it as a blown chance for Hawaii’s longline tuna fishermen to maintain their grip on the council’s direction.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

Papahanaumokuakea Review Spurs Tension With Conservation Groups, Fisheries

June 28, 2017 — President Donald Trump’s targeting of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the northwest Hawaiian Islands for national review has revived a lopsided debate between Native Hawaiians, senators, scientists and conservation groups in favor of the monument’s designation, and an activist fishery council mainly concerned with “maximizing longline yields.”

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council vocally opposed the monument’s expansion in 2016 during a public comment process, communicating that to the White House under the leadership of Executive Director Kitty Simonds. Simonds’ PowerPoint presentation at a recent Council Coordination Committee meeting detailed other monument areas in the Pacific under review, including the Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll, explicitly criticizing the designations as an abuse of the Antiquities Act. The PowerPoint concludes, “Make America great again. Return U.S. fishermen to U.S. waters.”

Established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Acts of 1976 and 1996, WESPAC is charged with reporting its recommendations for preventing overfishing and protecting fish stocks and habitat to the Commerce Department.

While WESPAC International Fisheries Enforcement and National Environmental Policy Act coordinator Eric Kingma believe that WESPAC’s communications with the president fall within the agency’s purview of advising the executive branch, others, including Earthjustice attorney Paul Achitoff, consider the comments an illegal “lobby to expand WESPAC turf” and shape public policy.

WESPAC argues that monument expansion hampers longline fishermen from feeding Hawaii, which imports roughly 60 percent of the fish it eats. Pro-expansion groups such as Expand Papahanaumokuakea point out that only 5 percent of longliner take came from the monument; that longliners have recently reached their quota by summer, then resorted to buying unused blocks from other fleets; and that much of the longliners’ take, including sashimi-grade bigeye tuna, is sold at auction to the mainland U.S., as well as to Japanese and other foreign buyers. The bigeye tuna catch, moreover, has been trending upward every year since the first year of logbook monitoring in 1991. In 2014, the Hawaii longline fleet caught a record 216,897 bigeye tuna, up 12 percent from 2013.

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service

Hawaii’s Longline Fishermen Pushing To Catch More Tuna

October 18th, 2016 — Hawaii’s longline fishermen will be able to go after similar amounts of bigeye tuna next year under a policy passed last week by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council.

But some have their sights set on doubling or even tripling their annual catch limits through new quota-sharing agreements with Pacific Island territories that don’t currently fish commercially for ahi.

Before that can happen though, the fishermen will need to demonstrate that the species is no longer subject to overfishing and convince federal officials that the pending arrangements with Guam, American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands do not violate international agreements to conserve fish stocks.

“We are right at the level of overfishing,” said Jarad Makaiau, a scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “We are right on the razor thin line.”

Wespac manages 1.5 million square miles of ocean in the Central and Western Pacific Ocean and advises the National Marine Fisheries Service on catch limits, endangered species mitigation and stock assessments.