December 15, 2016 — LIHUE, Hawaii — The first round of several meetings addressing options for management of the newly expanded Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument came to Kauai Tuesday night.
Joshua DeMello, fisheries analyst with the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, explained the process to a scant audience at Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School.
“We’re also looking at options for Native Hawaiian subsistence fishing,” DeMello said.
November 14, 2016 — The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council is wasting no time seeking financial compensation for those in the fishing industry who may claim they have been harmed by President Barack Obama’s expansion of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in late August.
At its meeting last month — shortly after being advised by counsel of restrictions on lobbying legislatures or the president for funds — the council decided to send a letter to Obama highlighting the expansion’s impacts on Hawaii fishing and seafood industries and indigenous communities and requesting that the Department of Commerce mitigate those impacts through “direct compensation to fishing sectors.”
The council’s letter will also include a request that the ban on commercial fishing in the expansion area — which includes the waters between 50 and 200 nautical miles off the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands — be phased in. The letter will also ask for “other programs that would directly benefit those impacted from the monument expansion.”
Compensation for fisheries closures in federal waters is not unprecedented. In 2005, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) reimbursed the Hawaii Longline Association $2.2 million for legal expenses tied to the group’s lawsuit opposing a temporary closure of the swordfish fishery. Also, as part of the same $5 million federal grant that funded the reimbursement, lobster and bottomfish fishers displaced by the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve established by President Bill Clinton also received hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct compensation and funds for fisheries research.
With regard to the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, after it was first established by President George W. Bush in 2006, then-Sen. Daniel Inouye inserted an earmark in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2007 that provided more than $6 million to NMFS for a “capacity reduction program.” That program allowed vessel owners with permits to fish for lobster or bottomfish in the NWHI to be paid the economic value of their permits if they chose to stop fishing well ahead of the date all commercial fishing was to end in the monument, June 15, 2011.
November 1, 2016 — A September Associated Press report regarding labor conditions of foreign workers on Honolulu fishing boats has prompted many in the industry to review or reasses their own sourcing practices.
On the Big Island, Suisan undertook an evaluation of its policies.
The retailer purchases all of its seafood from local fishermen and does not buy from longline boats, but wanted to “reassure the public that these are our fishermen here, and you don’t have to worry about that issue,” said vice president and general manager Kyle Kawano.
The Associated Press report last month found abuses of basic labor practices by some longline boats in Hawaii’s commercial fishing fleet. A federal loophole allows foreign crews to work on the vessels but they are not legally allowed to enter the country and cannot leave the boats.
Since then a new crew contract was developed by the Hawaii Longline Association that will be required of all boats who want to sell at the Honolulu fish auction. That contract is not federally enforceable by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, however, the industry will still be self-regulating.
Suisan president Glenn Hashimoto said that one of the boats Suisan works with employs two foreign workers who are relatives of the captain’s wife. He said they each have contracts like their American counterparts.
“They’ve been verified,” Kawano said.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, more than 80 percent of Hawaii’s commercial fish landings are from longline boats. Troll fishing comprises just over 10 percent.
Handline and seamount boat fishing account for 3.9 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively.
An undated fisheries overview by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which manages fish stocks, notes that handline-caught tuna plays a “significant role in the local tuna supply, particularly on the Big Island.”
Suisan sources 72 percent of its fish from day boats, which typically spend one to two days at sea, while 28 percent comes from seamount boats, which spend about a week at sea.
October 19, 2016 — PAGO PAGO, American Samoa — Tri Marine International chief operations officer Joe Hamby has brought up with the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council several issues concerning the tuna industry in American Samoa, pointing to the industry as the backbone of the territory’s economy and support must happen that “can be measured in economic terms.”
A letter discussing the issues by Hamby, who is also the acting chief executive officer of Tri Marine-owned Samoa Tuna Processors cannery, was distributed to members of the Council during it’s 168th meeting in Honolulu last week.
Tri Marine announced last week that canning operations at STP would be suspended indefinitely effective Dec. 11.
In his Oct. 14 letter to the Council, Hamby recalled that the local tuna industry consists of two large scale canneries, a number of purse seiners, longliners and alias. He noted purse seiners are mostly US flagged, while the longliners are foreign flagged, except for the locally based US flagged fleet.
“I understand that there are no alias currently targeting tuna,” he said. “The alias therefore represent potential participants in the American Samoa tuna industry.”
The local tuna industry also includes service providers like ship handlers, maintenance and repair companies, stevedores, net repair yards, a shipyard, transportation, agents, hotels, restaurants, etc.
“The tuna industry is the backbone of the American Samoa economy,” he declared and said the tuna canneries depend on the US market as tuna products from American Samoa are exempt from duty in the US.
“Without this duty exemption, the canneries are not competitive with lower cost sources of canned tuna. Free trade agreements, like TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership), are a serious threat to the American Samoa tuna industry,” Hamby said.
October 18th, 2016 — Seafood News — Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WestPac) will propose changes to fishery regulations to accommodate an expanded marine monument designation and also made no changes to the 2017 Pacific longline bigeye tuna catch.
WestPac agreed to produce a draft of amendments and regulations to the Hawai’i and Pelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plans (FEPs) to accommodate provisions of the August 26th Presidential Proclamation that expanded the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
The Obama Administrations designation expanded the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument to encompass the entire 200-mile US EZZ around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
An MPA designation means commercial fishing is banned in protected waters, though regulations can allow for non-commercial fishing, like subsistence practices.
“The impacts to the Hawaii fishing and seafood industries and indigenous communities as a result of monument expansion are considerable,” said Council Chair Edwin Ebisui Jr. “The Council will write to the President about these and request the Department of Commerce to mitigate them.”
The Council will solicit public input on the draft FEP amendment and draft regulation options through statewide meetings to be held prior to the Council’s next meeting in March 2017.
The Council will also ask the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to analyze various impacts of the monument expansion, which closed commercial fishing in approximately 61 percent of the US EEZ around the Hawai’i Archipelago. Among these is the change in longline effort around the main Hawaiian Islands in relation to changes in troll caught yellowfin tuna.
Meanwhile, WestPact recommended no changes for the 2017 longline commercial bigeye tuna catch.
This means the longline limits for the bigeye tuna catch will remain at 2,000 metric tons for the US Participating Territory.
Additionally, the Council also authorized the Territories of American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marina Islands (CNMI) to allocate up to 1,000 mt of their limit to US fishermen through specified fishing agreements as authorized under Amendment 7 of the Pelagic Fishery Ecosystem Plan for the Western Pacific Region.
WestPac says the transfer amendment provides the Territories with funding for fisheries development projects in their respective Marine Conservation Plans.
“The transfers also help to stabilize Hawai’i’s local fresh tuna market,”said Council Executive Director Kitty M. Simonds.
The amendment was actually invoked this month to extend the bigeye tuna season for the US sector in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
“It was a lot of work for the agency, but leaving 250 metric tons of bigeye in the water with 30 boats unable to fish was a significant hardship on 20 percent of the Hawaii fleet,” said Hawaii Longline Association President Sean Martin in our story about the quota transfer.
This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.
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.
Scientists advising Wespac say the U.S. can increase its fishing effort without impeding international efforts to eliminate overfishing, pointing at countries like South Korea and Japan that have quota limits four or five times higher.
The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, a 26-member international body that sets the tuna quota limits, has determined that overfishing has been occurring in the region since at least 2004.
October 13, 2016 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Tuesday that it will be collaborating with fisherman in Hawaii to research the health and size of several native fish species’s populations.
The research will focus on seven species of Hawaii’s deep-water bottom-dwelling fish, which include six species of snapper and one species of grouper. These big red fish, particularly the Onaga and the Opakapaka, are commonly eaten across Hawaii, and the data from this study will inform sustainable fishing practices that, hopefully, will allow these fish to remain in the cultural diet for years to come.
“Our current stock assessment shows that [the Hawaii deep seven] are not over fished and they are not experiencing over fishing,” Benjamin Richard, a NOAA marine biologist who is leading the research, tells The Christian Science Monitor. “Part of our role is to collect the best scientific information so that we can help to ensure that that continues.”
All commercial fisheries are required to record how many fish they catch and sell. The data is used by the state, and agencies such as NOAA’s Pacific Islands Regional Office and the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, to inform the annual catch limit. But this study aims to improve upon those methods.
September 27, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Right now, anyone can throw a cage into the open ocean within the Economic Enterprise Zone and begin an aquaculture operation, said Joshua DeMello, of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council.
But with “gray area rules” on things like permits, species and reporting requirements, large-scale companies are hesitant to take advantage of the open ocean just yet.
“No one is doing that,” DeMello said. “We’ve gotten calls in the past about folks that are interested, but a lot of them are waiting to see what type of management plan comes out.”
The beginning of that aquaculture management program for the Pacific Islands Region is in the works, under the eye of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Marine Fisheries Service and in conjunction with
Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council.
The entities are preparing a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) analyzing the possible environmental impacts of the proposed management program and alternatives.
“The purpose of it is to develop a management program to support sustainable, economically sound aquaculture in the Pacific Island Region,” DeMello said.
The PEIS process looks at options for permit duration, whether cages should be metal or net pens, and allowable species.
“The push is to have something in place so if someone does come in and do (large-scale aquaculture), there would be rules set up to ensure the wild stocks and environment are protected, and the rights of other fishermen and ocean users are preserved,” DeMello said.
But ushering industrial aquaculture into the EEZ is anything but sustainable, poses a threat to the environment and could impact commercial fishing, according to a biologist.
“For example, that would pose a navigational hazard to commercial fishermen, and they are important,” said aquatic biologist Don Heacock. “Not everyone fishes for themselves today.”
In addition to interrupting commercial fishing, Heacock said the idea of large-scale aquaculture isn’t sustainable.
“We found that out with large-scale pineapple and sugar,” he said. “The EEZ was established to protect our resources and our fisheries and they’d be using up public trust resources to export products to other countries.”
The counterbalance to the industrial scale aquaculture operations is the ahupua’a land management system and its hundreds of fishponds, Heacock said, established by the Hawaiians more than 500 years ago.
“The ahupua’a system was (created) by a chief on Oahu because he had to — they were running out of food because the population had grown so big,” Heacock said. “They had to decide how to produce more food and do it sustainably, and that’s when the fishponds were built.”
Those fishponds were integrated with taro fields and other types of agriculture, Heacock explained, to work with the watersheds and produce food sustainably.
“Right now, they’re looking at large-scale corporate aquaculture facilities where they will be bringing in all the (starter) fish,” Heacock said. “Large-scale aquaculture is not sustainable and doesn’t contribute to food security.”
NOAA says aquaculture is a way to increase marine food production.
“It’s increased a lot in the past, I would say 20 years or so, to the point now where they say aquaculture production is above that of wild capture fisheries,” DeMello said. “That includes all types — land based and open ocean.”
The comment period for the public scoping process to help identify alternatives ends Oct. 31, but DeMello said it won’t be the last time the public has opportunity to comment on the PEIS.
This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.
September 22, 2016 — “How Fishing Interests Infiltrated Conservation’s Biggest Event” by Nick Grube is a good example of how one of Civil Beat’s smiling imps makes nice to Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council staff who are quite happy and open to questions. Then he does a hatchet job full of insinuations and half-truths.
Shame on us, we never learn, but then again if we’d remained imperious and silent, we’d still get knifed between the ribs.
Applying and then being granted membership of the International Union for Conservation of Nature can hardly be called infiltration. The Council isn’t some form of clandestine organization bent on world domination. Implying that fishing interests have no place at IUCN is extremely narrow-minded. The majority of IUCN members recognize the importance of good management of resources, which is the Council’s function.
The IUCN 2017-2020 program has three pillars:
September 2, 2016 — Using the power given to presidents under the 1906 National Antiquities Act, [President] Obama has now set aside more than twice as much land and water as any president before him. His latest national monument is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in waters near the Hawaiian islands.
The president is quadrupling an area first protected by President George W. Bush 10 years ago. It’s called the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.
Matt Rand, who directs the Global Ocean Legacy Project with the Pew Charitable Trusts, says expanding Papahanaumokuakea keeps [environmental] momentum going in a big way.
“Before President Obama expanded it, it [Papahanaumokuakea] had fallen to the 10th largest marine reserve, which is actually great news,” Rand said. “That means 10 other countries, and 10 other marine reserves, went and one-upped the original Papahanaumokuakea.”
Once again, it’s the largest marine sanctuary in the world.
“Our hope is that President Obama’s bold action now starts another race to protect the ocean,” Rand said.
But that’s sure to be met with stiff resistance from the fishing industry. Paul Dalzell, a senior scientist with the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council in Hawaii, said they’ve set up their own protections to maintain healthy fish populations with things like catch limits. He said the new marine sanctuary is arbitrary and ignores the latest science.
“These environmentalists are going to try to protect something whether that protection is warranted or not,” Dalzell said. “They’re professional advocates, and it’s their job to find something to protect.”
Environmentalists argue that marine sanctuaries can actually help the fishing industry. Setting up marine protections strengthens ecosystems. This, in turn, promotes more productive fisheries outside of protected areas.
Dalzell sees things another way. He said limiting the areas where they traditionally fish will allow foreign fishermen to take away some of their market share.
“How would you like to be told, ‘We’re going to take away 10 percent of your income, but you’re free to go find other work that will make that up?” said Dalzell.