Editorial

Hawai’i Can Wait No Longer to Protect Vanishing Near-Shore Resources

The near-shore news is not good. More fishers, with ever more efficient gear, means just one thing: fewer fish.

As a whole, fishers are slow to accept the blame, pointing frequently to runoff, pollution, and other generally harmful effects of coastal development. To be sure, these things don’t enhance populations of the most desirable fish, but their impact is minimal compared to that of the outright and intentional killing of fish.

Replenishing stocks of near-shore fish is not rocket science. About the only thing you need to do is stop taking so many fish out of the water and protect their remaining habitat from further destruction or damage.

The easiest way to accomplish this is simply to ban fishing in some of the most important nurseries for juvenile fish. And once the ban is in place, enforce it.

Yet what seems so easy is being made so difficult. In the past, the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Aquatic Resources has not pushed hard for such bans, noting that without the buy-in of the regulated fishing community, any ban is difficult to enforce. Punishing personnel cuts to the DLNR’s police force, the Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement, make it all the more important to have fishers understand and respect the need to place certain areas off-limits.

In recent years, legislation has been introduced that would direct the DLNR to establish more no-take marine reserves than the handful that now exist. But the bills have backfired, acting as a red flag to the fishing community in Hawai’i. Now feeling themselves under attack, many of its members have linked up with a national so-called “Freedom to Fish” movement. As with so many of the organizations fighting rearguard actions against Mother Nature, this movement demands “scientific” proof that prudent measures to protect resources – in this case, marine reserves – have a beneficial effect before those measures can be put into place. It’s a circular argument: no reserves can be set aside until the fishing community has proof that they work. And no proof can be obtained until the marine reserves are established and are allowed to work their magic – something that may take years.

But the Division of Aquatic Resources and the Board of Land and Natural Resources have a constituency that is far greater than the population of fishers, no matter how influential they may be. The Land Board and DAR have the responsibility to protect the state’s marine resources for all its citizens, and in perpetuity. And they jointly have all the authority that is needed to give the governor rules that will accomplish precisely this.

Yes, it’s great to have the fishing community buy into the rules. But unless the rules protect the fish, such buy-in is meaningless. The Division of Aquatic Resources, with encouragement from the Land Board, should take measures now to protect Hawai’i’s nearshore fish. Set up more no-take marine reserves. Outlaw destructive gear at once. And, to get a better handle on the impacts of recreational fishers, increase the frequency and scope of shoreside creel surveys.

Taxing the Resource

The real value of Hawai’i’s nearshore resources, it turns out, lies not in the economic value of fish taken from the water, but in the fish that remain there. Commercial tours – whether they involve snorkeling, kayaking, diving, or cavorting with dolphins – account for a far greater slice of Hawai’i’s economic pie than does the combined commercial and recreational catch of fish.

Yet the contribution of these tours to the very real, and very substantial, costs of managing the natural resources on which they depend is negligible. Generally, they pay 2 percent of their gross revenues to the Division of Boating and Ocean Resources. Of the nearly $10 million a year DOBOR receives from tour boat operators, a percentage of fuel sales, and berth rentals, around 12 percent goes to the DLNR’s Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement to help underwrite the expense of enforcing DOBOR’s rules (and provide increased security for cruise ships that dock at DLNR harbors in Lahaina and Kona). Yet not one red cent goes toward helping to manage and protect marine resources, despite a critical need for additional funds.

That’s an outrage. For the last several years, DOBOR has toyed with the idea of raising its fees, with an eye to making much-needed improvements in small-harbor infrastructure. To be sure, such improvements are long overdue. But so, too, is the unpaid obligation that commercial tour operators have to maintain the state’s natural resources.

No increase in DOBOR fees should be allowed unless and until a significant portion of what it collects from such commercial operators is diverted to resource protection and the portion that goes for enforcement is substantially increased. After all, who better to pay for the protection of the high-value near-shore resources than those who benefit from them the most?

Taxing Taxpayers’ Patience

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been held at bay for seven long years by the people who sold it 5,300 acres in South Kona for use as a wildlife refuge. Squabbling, and then a court case, over relocation costs and bickering over an access easement have allowed the former owners to continue to enjoy, rent-free, unfettered use of the land, while the service is left to monitor, by means of periodic helicopter trips, the slow deterioration of the natural resources that made the land an attractive purchase to start with.

The former owners continue to toy with the government – agreeing in open court last March to a settlement of the most contentious issues, but then reneging on that agreement as soon as the judge hearing the case retreats to her chambers.

Even though the current administration in Washington dislikes the prospect of condemnation, never has there been a stronger case for it. So long as the Fish and Wildlife Service lacks overland access to this site, the millions of federal taxpayer dollars that have been invested into this land amount to a total waste.

Either the federal government should sue for access via condemnation, or it should sue to get its money back from the owners – with interest. Had the government played hardball with these owners from the get-go, by now the South Kona refuge would be fenced (remember the government won and then lost a $1 million private grant to do this, because of lack of access), the cattle would be gone, and the precious and endangered flora and fauna of the place would be on their way to recovery.

Volume 15, Number 4 October 2004