Editorial: Keep monument a no-fishing zone

The Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument (PMNM), a protected area surrounding the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, is cherished for its connection to the creation story of Hawaiians and its place in Hawaiian navigation and cultural practice, as well as its unique ocean- and land-based ecosystems.

In 2016, then-President Barack Obama issued a proclamation expanding the boundaries of the PMNM, creating one of the largest fully protected conservation areas in the world, covering around 580,000 square miles of ocean. It shelters at least 23 species listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, including the Hawaiian monk seal and four species of endangered turtles, and provides two-thirds of the humpback whale’s wintering habitat.

Papahanaumokuakea holds a special role in marine conservation and Hawaiian culture, and it’s imperative that any permitted activities within the marine area avoid disregard for either. To permit more expansive fishing within Papahanaumokuakea’s boundaries should not be allowed — yet it is an option under consideration as the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) takes steps toward designating the monument a national marine sanctuary.

By NOAA’s direction, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (Wespac) is drafting fishing regulations for Papahanaumokuakea, and will recommend which activities should be permitted. It’s expected that all commercial fishing will be banned, as it is currently. But certain types of “non-commercial” fishing, as defined by NOAA, have blurry boundaries.

Some Wespac council members have raised the prospect of permitting “customary exchange,” defined by NOAA as trading “between fishers and community residents for goods, services, and/or social support for cultural, social, or religious reasons.”

Permitting “customary exchange” would also allow fishers to take money to pay for their trips to Papa- hanaumokuakea, which is 200 miles from Kauai, the nearest Hawaiian island.

Wespac’s Non-Commercial Fishery Advisory Committee has recommended that Wespac “maximizes fishing opportunities” in Papahanaumokuakea, and has supported customary exchange, allowing fishing trip expenses to monument waters to be paid for.

If customary exchange was a tradition within Papahanaumokuakea’s waters, this would be worthy of consideration. Customary exchange is improper for Papahanaumokuakea, however, because it is not “customary” in these waters.

The Papahanaumokuakea Native Hawaiian Cultural Working Group, established to advise NOAA, has submitted testimony that customary exchange is “harmful and incompatible with the known traditions specific to this region.” The working group is made up of Hawaiians with connections and historical ties to the monument.

Historically, traveling to the area was not motivated by the need to bring food back home, the working group testified. In fact, the area was “customarily deemed kapu or off-limits to fishing,” except for a traditional practice of harpooning ulua, or giant trevally, from the shore of northwest islands.

The Hawaiian working group’s position is correct: Customary exchange would not take the region’s spiritual and cultural significance into account, “allowing for potential, unscrupulous exploitation.”

The history of Hawaiian practice around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands shows that this was not an area of avid fishing. The suggestion that fishing expeditions to Papahanaumokuakea could be funded in exchange for bartered fish should be rejected.

Wespac is scheduled to make its preliminary recommendation this week, and will make a final recommendation in December.