The Western Pacific fishing council has stuck with its decision to allow the sale of some fish caught in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument expansion area, arguing that more access to fishing both in Hawaii and around the Pacific region helps perpetuate cultural practices.
During its 194th meeting last week, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, or Wespac, amended its recently established permitting system that allows noncommercial and subsistence fishing in the monument expansion area, or MEA, which is protected from commercial fishing.
The initial system gave subsistence fishers — those with a Native Hawaiian Subsistence Practices Fishing Permit — the ability to sell up to $15,000 worth of fish caught in the area to recoup fuel, food, bait and other costs of that fishing trip.
It was a controversial move that some said opens the door for commercial fishing in waters where it is banned and conservation is prioritized.
Last week the council voted 9-2 to amend the permitting system by removing the $15,000 cap, and recommended in its place a system in which permittees can request NOAA to allow them to recover the costs of the trip by selling the fish they caught on the trip.
Despite the amendments, Wespac decided to keep permitted fishers’ ability to sell fish at all, arguing that it will encourage Native Hawaiian cultural practices in the monument waters, which surround the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
“In American Samoa, our culture spends a lot of money to try to keep our culture alive,” said Will Sword, one of Wespac’s vice chairs, during the meeting. “If Hawaii wants to keep its culture alive … you have to think of these things, even when it comes to fishing. It’s not making money, it’s not commercial, it’s actually just recovering your costs so you can perpetuate your culture.”
Sword is a noncommercial fisher in American Samoa and manager and engineer for Pacific Energy South West Pacific.
In its recommendation, Wespac said, “Native Hawaiians are at the top of several socio- economic indicators including the highest rates of poverty, unemployment, negative health conditions. … A decision to disallow cost recovery, including sales, will continue to disenfranchise the Native Hawaiian community.”
Last week’s vote is unsurprising, and was likely held only because the council received a letter from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration advising it to remove the sale of fish.
NOAA is in the process of designating Papahanaumokuakea as a national marine sanctuary, and it told the council in the Feb. 22 letter that including the ability to sell fish caught in the monument is inconsistent with the purposes of a sanctuary.
Nicole LeBoeuf, assistant administrator for ocean services and coastal zone management, in the letter said that any “permit system would need to include sufficient safeguards to ensure that the resources harvested do not enter commerce.”
While it accepts recommendations from councils like Wespac, NOAA has the final authority on implementing regulations in sanctuaries, and the council was warned that its letter all but guaranteed that it would reject the allowance of fish sales.
Even council member David Sakoda, commercial fisheries program manager for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Aquatic Resources, said keeping the sale of fish would be a nonstarter.
“I heard pretty clearly … that this language would still not be consistent with sanctuary purposes and would likely not be accepted. Then it would be out of the council’s hands,” Sakoda told the council just before members voted on the action.
Sakoda and fellow council member Shae Kamakaala, who is director of aina protection with the Hawaiian Islands Land Trust, were the two lone votes against last week’s action. They were also the only two members in December to vote against establishing the permitting system in the first place.
Though the council as a whole continues to argue that it’s trying to perpetuate Native Hawaiian cultural practices, Sakoda and Kamakaala have repeatedly said that Native Hawaiians did not traditionally use the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to fish.
“Allowing people that identify and engage in Native Hawaiian practices this opportunity to fish in a way that is truly not grounded in culture or our cultural values … actually jeopardizes the health and integrity of Native Hawaiians,” Kamakaala said just before the council’s vote.
Months before Wespac established the permitting system in December, the Papahanaumokuakea Native Hawaiian Cultural Working Group also said that Wespac’s permitting system protects nonexistent cultural traditions in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
It’s no secret, however, that the other council members are concerned not just about Hawaii and its cultural practices, but of those of all the regions covered by Wespac, which include American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the Pacific Remote Islands.
“This is going to set a precedent for the other island areas that are possibly facing sanctuary or monument designation, and that’s why we’re having great difficulty amending the language … because that would not be upholding the interests of island people,” council member Judith Guthertz, a professor of legal studies at the University of Guam, said during the meeting.
Closing the council meeting, Wespac Chair John Gourley of Micronesian Environmental Services said the federal government and environmental groups are taking advantage of the Pacific region and its “politically neutered” communities that, other than Hawaii, don’t have voting members in U.S. Congress to represent them.
“(There) is one monument- sanctuary running all the way from Hawaii to the Marianas. … I look at that, and it’s like this area is being targeted,” said Gourley, who represents the Mariana Islands. “We’re perceived as low-hanging fruit — they can do anything they want to, close out anything they want to. And it’s our U.S. fishing fleet that’s hurting, and us.”
There are four marine national monuments in the Pacific Ocean that together cover nearly 1.2 million square miles of open ocean. When Papahanaumokuakea was expanded in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama, it became the largest marine sanctuary in the world.
Wespac has made a point to show how much Pacific regions, many of which have economies that are heavily dependent on commercial fishing, are sacrificing in the name of the country’s environmental goals, and in particular President Joe Biden’s goal to conserve 30% of U.S. waters by 2030.
It noted in a Tuesday news release that 53% of federal waters in the Pacific Ocean are already closed to commercial fishing through their designation as a marine national monument.
The news release noted that the council meeting was opened by Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero, who warned of the unintended impacts of Biden’s recent announcement to expand the U.S. Pacific Remote Islands National Marine Monument and designate it as a sanctuary.
“I don’t believe that any of us are against the intentions, but there are impacts hanging on those intentions … that fail to consider our food security or our fishing traditions,” Guerrero said in a statement. “Pacific Islanders eat two to four times more fish than people in other nations, with most of the fish we eat from our own waters and reefs. We also contribute more than 30% of the global market for tuna.”
During the opening of the council meeting, Gov. Arnold Palacios of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands also urged the Biden administration to communicate with and respect Pacific communities.
“Government policies have profound impacts on small communities. I am not opposed to conservation and management measures — that is the purpose of the Council,” Palacios said in a statement. “But we need to start talking, respecting and considering the consequences of our decisions.”
