PRI Planning: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are inviting public input as a first step toward developing a management plan for the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. The monument, which covers almost half a million square miles in the central Pacific, includes seven islands and atolls plus 165 seamounts that NOAA describes as “hotspots of species abundance and diversity.”
“Many nationally and internationally threatened, endangered, and depleted species thrive at Palmyra and Kingman, including sea turtles, pearl oysters, giant clams, reef sharks, coconut crabs, fishes and dolphins,” according to NOAA. “Both Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef support higher levels of coral diversity (180-190 species) than any other atoll or reef island in the Central Pacific.”
The monument was first established by presidential proclamation in 2009 and ex- panded in 2014 to its current boundaries.
For more information on the monument, visit: https://www.fisheries.noaa. gov/pacific-islands/habitat-conservation/ pacific-remote-islands-marine-national-monument. To submit online comments, go to: https://www.regulations.gov, enter NOAA-NMFS-2021-0122 in the search box, and click on the “comment” icon.
Comments need to be submitted by January 22.
Kahala Resort Permit: Last month, Honolulu resident Tyler Ralston appealed to the 1st Circuit Court to reverse a November 12 Board of Land and Natural Resources decision to approve a revocable permit to ResortTrust Hawai‘i. The permit, which has been renewed or reissued for decades, allows the company to continue setting chairs and storing equipment on a piece of state land fronting the Kahala Hotel and Resort, which the company owns.
Ralston, who frequents the public area fronting the resort, testified to the board that he believed ResortTrust failed to comply with the terms of its previous permit. He said that the company had stored an unauthorized gazebo on the state parcel and pre-set more than the 71 chairs allowed under the permit. “I think it’s inappropriate to renew when they don’t comply with the terms,” he said.
He also complained that the landscaping on the state parcel made one area look like it was part of hotel property, when it should be open to the public.
“It’s very exclusionary … the way it’s laid out,” he said.
Ralston requested a contested case hearing on the proposed permit, but was denied after the board held an executive session. Ralston’s appeal also asks the court to reverse that decision.
Ralston is being represented in the case by David Kimo Frankel, who had similarly fought the company’s previous permit renewals to no avail. Ralston and Frankel argue that the Land Board’s decision violated its public trust duties, as well as the state Coastal Zone Management Act.
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