Agency overreaches in trying to roll back marine monument

The Western Pacific Fisheries Management Council’s (Wespac’s) leaders vociferously opposed expanding Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, and now are asking the Trump administration to remove restrictions on commercial fishing there. Their actions are grossly inappropriate and possibly illegal.

Building on President Bill Clinton’s executive order, President George W. Bush established the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in 2006. President Barack Obama expanded protections in 2016 at the request of thousands of Native Hawaiians, scientists, conservationists, small-boat fishermen and U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz.

Hawaii’s governor supported the expansion, which was approved only after the Obama administration held multiple meetings in the islands with interested constituents — including the longline industry — and held two public meetings, on Oahu and Kauai, to take public comment. Additionally, grassroots supporters offered more than 135 community meetings across the state, on every island, to discuss the expansion. This dialogue resulted in the final size of the expanded monument being reduced to ensure access to fishing grounds used by small-boat fishermen.

Papahanaumokukea encompasses extensive coral reefs supporting 7,000 marine species, and important habitat for the threatened green sea turtle, endangered Hawaiian monk seal, 22 species of seabirds and countless creatures yet to be discovered. A UNESCO World Heritage site, it has been designated as a Particularly Sensitive Sea Area by the International Maritime Organization. It also is rich in historic artifacts, from whaling shipwrecks to downed aircraft from World War II’s Battle of Midway, the critical turning point in the war in the Pacific.

The protected area features biocultural resources sacred to Native Hawaiians, and important for traditional activities such as long-distance voyaging and wayfinding. It is where Hawaiians believe all life began, and to which spirits return after death. Obama’s proclamation named the Office of Hawaiian Affairs as a fourth co-trustee of the monument.

The commercial longliners don’t like the monument, claiming it restricts their fishing area. But there’s no evidence of any economic loss. Hawaii’s longliners have no trouble reaching their annual bigeye fishing quotas — last year, it took just seven months. And, to keep fishing, they simply buy other regions’ quotas. In recent years the longliners caught less than five percent of their catch in the expanded monument waters. To make up for this, they can — and will — fish where they are already finding 95 percent of their catch.

Despite this, Wespac leadership has complained directly to President Donald Trump. It wants to maximize longliners’ private profits yet again, at the expense of a healthy ecosystem.

This is not the Council’s role. Council members are trustees of the nation’s fishery resources, and take an oath to “conserve and manage the living marine resources of the United States of America.” They are supposed to gather scientific data and help develop and implement ecosystem-based fishery management plans, not shape policy, fight national monument designations, or lobby to expand Council turf. The Council’s overzealous pursuit of longliner profits may have violated laws against using federal funds to lobby.

The Council has a bad habit of testing the limits of the lobbying laws’ prohibitions. Now that an anti-environment administration has come to power, the Council is once more inappropriately trying to influence policy, seeking profit at the expense of unique and extraordinary natural and cultural resources. Wespac should remember what its job actually is. It should be working to resist efforts by the Trump administration to erode these important protections instead of encouraging their destruction. It should also be attending to the labor abuses reported in the longline fishery — from beatings to below-minimum-wage pay to inadequate health care — instead of continuing to attack our most valued marine resources.

Marjorie Ziegler is executive director of the nonprofit Conservation Council for Hawai‘i; Paul Achitoff is the managing attorney of Earthjustice’s Mid-Pacific office in Honolulu; Rick Gaffney has served on Wespac and other federal advisory panels.