DLNR says it can’t halt fishing abuses

Officials with Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources emphasized Thursday that their agency doesn’t have the power to address reports of poor labor conditions aboard Hawaii-based longline fishing vessels, an issue that gained prominence after an Associated Press investigation found instances of human trafficking and slavelike labor conditions aboard some boats.

Last month five Hawaii residents filed a petition with DLNR asking the agency to amend its rules for issuing fishing licenses to the largely foreign crew of workers in hopes that it would help crack down on labor abuses. But DLNR’s Division of Aquatic Resources is recommending that the Board of Land and Natural Resources, which oversees the department, reject the petition, primarily because the rule changes aren’t likely to address the problem.

DLNR’s responsibility is to manage fisheries.

“This really isn’t a fisheries responsibility,” Bruce Anderson, administrator for DLNR’s Division of Aquatic Resources, said at a news conference. “There is a loophole, if you will, in federal law that allows foreign non-U.S. citizens to work on vessels which are pursuing highly migratory fish. … That’s created some problems in enforcing working conditions and other problems that may occur on the vessels. And I think that requires a federal fix. That’s not something that we can do locally.”

The Land Board is scheduled to take up the petition during a meeting set to start at 9 a.m. today at DLNR headquarters, 1151 Punchbowl St., Room 132.

Federal law requires that U.S. citizens make up 75 percent of the crew on commercial fishing vessels. However, a loophole dating from the 1980s exempts Hawaii’s longline commercial fishing industry from complying with this requirement.

As a result, the majority of the crew members manning Hawaii’s longline fleet of about 140 vessels are from impoverished Southeast Asian and Pacific nations, the AP report found. The investigation found instances of fishermen being confined to boats for years at a time and paid as low as 70 cents per hour.

Hawaii’s congressional delegation and some federal agencies have signaled that they are working to address the reports.

The petition was filed by Kathryn Xian, executive director of the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery; blogger Larry Geller; Michael Gagne; Karen Chun; and Cory Harden.