With Hawaii plagued by widespread coral bleaching for the second year in a row, state officials Monday announced plans to fight back.
Officials said they are launching the development of a statewide coral reef management plan for nearshore waters in hopes of making corals more resilient and better able to recover from what they expect will be a growing phenomenon in the coming decades.
At the same time, however, they decided against imposing a moratorium on aquarium fish collecting as the Office of Environmental Quality Control and more than a dozen conservation organizations called on them to do recently.
State Department of Land and Natural Resources Director Suzanne Case said the science indicates there is no strong nexus between aquarium fish collecting and the health of coral reefs.
Case also announced there would be no formal environmental review of the aquarium industry as requested by former OEQC Director Jessica Wooley.
Calling this year’s mass coral bleaching a crisis, Wooley sent Case a letter in October citing scientific data indicating there’s a nearshore decline in the kinds of fish that the Hawaii aquarium trade collects. These herbivore fishes eat the algae from the reef and help keep corals clean and healthy.
“The urgency of this issue is increasing as scientific evidence has shown that the effects of coral bleaching can be ameliorated when there are robust herbivore reef fish populations,” she wrote.
But officials Monday said the aquarium trade doesn’t appear to be a major problem for Hawaii’s reefs.
The fishery is primarily centered in West Hawaii, they said, and 15 years of data show that the herbivore fishes that make up the vast majority of the catch have actually increased over the years and are now more numerous there than any other place in the Hawaiian archipelago.
In addition, the aquarium trade isn’t capturing the kinds of fish that are most critical to the reef, they said.
William Walsh, state aquatic biologist, said that while the aquarium industry generally goes for the grazers, which include fish such as the popular yellow tang, they aren’t interested in the scrapers/excavators, which research suggests are the key players in overall coral reef health.
This category of herbivores, which includes the parrotfish, controls invasive algae and creates open spaces in the coral that lead to reef recovery, Walsh said.
“Not all herbivores are created equal,” he said.
Contacted Monday afternoon, Rene Umberger, director of the Maui-based group For the Fishes, said she was disappointed the state declined to take more urgent measures.
“We see this as an emergency,” she said.
Umberger, who is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking greater state oversight over the aquarium trade, said all types of reef herbivores — grazers, browsers and scrapers/excavators — are critical to healthy coral reefs and their recovery in times of stress.
Bruce Anderson, administrator of the state Division of Aquatic Resources, said the statewide coral reef management plan will be a top priority for the division over the next few months considering the severity of coral bleaching across Hawaii the last two years.
He said that while there was more bleaching seen last year in the western end of the main islands — Oahu and Kauai — this year the eastern end of the islands — Hawaii island and Maui — is getting slammed.
“On the Big Island we’re seeing extensive bleaching, and it’s probably going to get a lot worse before it gets better,” he said.
Bleaching occurs when corals are stressed by changes in the environment, especially a rise in temperature, which Hawaii has experienced this year and last. The coral ejects the symbiotic algae living in its tissue, causing the tissue to fade and turn white. Without the algae, the coral loses its primary source of food and is left to starve.
It is believed that 30 percent to 40 percent of the world’s reefs have died as a result of bleaching events.
Anderson said scientists have warned there will be more episodes of bleaching in the future as the world experiences increasing warming and a greater propensity for warm-water El Nino events.
“There’s no question we’re going to see a much bigger problem in the future than what we have today,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure that the reefs can recover.”
There will be three phases to creating the plan, he said. The first is soliciting input from coral reef scientists from around the world. Second, a group of Hawaii experts will be convened to look at the science and apply it locally. Finally, input will be gathered from ocean users.
“This isn’t a simple one-size-fits-all approach,” Anderson said.
While runoff is a big problem for reefs on the Leeward side of Oahu, for example, it isn’t a huge factor in some other regions, he said.
“We’ll need different solutions for different places,” he said.
Anderson said he would expect new management measures and rules to arise out of the planning process over the next year.
