The morning of the vote, before the day’s meeting officially began, members and staff of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council huddled with staff from the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Pacific Islands Regional Office. Wespac executive director Kitty Simonds, NMFS … Continued
How much did U.S. taxpayers spend to argue against the recent expansion of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument? Environment Hawai`i asked that question after the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (Wespac) issued a press release describing a meeting … Continued
HFACT Facts: The newly minted Hawai`i Fishermen’s Alliance for Conservation and Tradition made headlines in April 2013 when it petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service to remove the North Pacific humpback whales from the federal list of endangered species. Its … Continued
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has directed the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (Wespac) to investigate the extent to which federal grant funds might have been misused by council staff members involved in preparing the pending petition to remove … Continued
When it comes to the arcana of American jurisprudence, the cases alleging Central American worker injury as a result of DBCP exposure provide a good introduction. There you will find such unusual tactics as impleadings, claims of forum non conveniens … Continued
Last month, the National Marine Fisher-ies Service published a final rule limiting catches of bigeye tuna in the eastern Pacific (east of 150* West meridian). The rule, intended to address diminishing stocks of this fish in the Eastern Tropical Pacific, … Continued
It smacks a lot more of ‘egosystem’ than ecosystem management,” Rob Shal-lenberger says of the jurisdictional fights that have plagued the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands over the years. Shallenberger, retired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and now working with … Continued
The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council has approved changes to its rules for lobster fishing that run smack against the state’s rules for fishing lobsters in waters under Hawai`i territorial jurisdiction. The changes may make sense for the harvesting … Continued
In determining the health of fish populations, accurate information is essential. But the state of Hawai’i, to which falls the responsibility to collect data on catches of all fish landed in Hawai’i (including fish caught in federal waters), has a … Continued
Starting in the late 1970s, Hawai’i’s fisheries came under increasing state and federal scrutiny. In 1979, the state issued its first fisheries development plan, which prescribed an ambitious array of activities (some state, some federal, some private) intended to encourage … Continued