A decade ago, Daniel Pauly, one of the leading scientists in the field of fisheries management, coined a term: Fishing down the food web. This describes what happens when the large marine predators are overfished and their numbers decline, while … Continued
The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council’s vote to make certain records available to the public only through Freedom of Information Act requests and others available not at all came exactly one week after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder issued instructions … Continued
When it comes to the free flow of information, the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (Wespac) has locked itself into the proverbial smoke-filled back room. While other regional councils are taking steps to make their actions more transparent, the Honolulu-based … Continued
In the three years since total allowable catch limits, or TACs, were first set for seven species of highly prized bottomfish around the Main Hawaiian Islands, the annual quotas have steadily grown. From 178,000 pounds the first year, it has … Continued
For Kitty Simonds, executive director of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, what happened on Saturday, July 25, must have felt like a palace coup. At the tail end of a four-day meeting of the council in Kona, Simonds had … Continued
For the first time, the Hawai`i longline fleet is operating under catch limits for its most lucrative haul – bigeye tuna – throughout virtually the entire area it fishes. Yet the trade group representing the 125 or so longline vessels … Continued
Honolulu doesn’t even make the list of the nation’s top 10 ports when it comes to the volume of fish landed, but the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council leads the way when it comes to dollars hauled in. According to … Continued
What’s one or two more dead Pacific loggerhead or leatherback sea turtles a year going to mean for the survival of those species? According to the federal Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, probably nothing. Conservationists, on the other hand, believe … Continued
For the last year, the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council has been paying Leimana DaMate to organize a series of meetings, called puwalu, that bring together Native Hawaiians to discuss approaches to managing Hawai`i’s ocean resources. But has the process, … Continued
“It’s hard, but it’s done already,” Dennis Kamikawa told the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council at its June meeting. Kamikawa, a commercial bottomfisherman for more than 15 years, is resigned to the harsh limits on bottomfishing recently laid down by … Continued