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A noncommercial and subsistence fishing permitting system has been recommended for federal waters surrounding the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in a move to encourage Native Hawaiian cultural practices, and it will come with the ability for fishers to recoup up to $15,000 per subsistence fishing trip.
New regulations for federal waters surrounding Papahanaumokuakea, one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world, were voted on last week by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which oversees fisheries in Hawaii waters and the U.S. Pacific Islands. After approval by the secretary of commerce, council recommendations are implemented by the National Marine Fisheries Service.
While Papahanaumokuakea encompasses 582,578 square miles of the Pacific Ocean — an area larger than all the country’s national parks combined — the noncommercial and subsistence fishing zone outside of the monument would be allowed from 50 to 200 nautical miles in expansion areas around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
The controversial recommendations, and a ban on commercial activity, come after a months-long discussion on fishing regulations in the expansion area.
Among the recommendations is a provision that allows for “customary exchange,” which is meant to encourage Native Hawaiian cultural practices but also the ability to recoup costs for a subsistence fishing trip.
Fishers with a permit to engage in Native Hawaiian subsistence practices in the expansion area could trade, barter or sell fish caught during the trip to recoup costs of the fishing trips, but the council decided to cap the amount they can recoup at $15,000 per trip.
“It is important to provide this opportunity for people in the Pacific, specifically Hawaii, to provide food for their community, especially areas that have been culturally their place to fish,” said American Samoa council member Will Sword in a statement. “We can also take advantage of the chance to gather much needed data.”
The inclusion of “customary exchange” and cost recovery has been a point of contention, as commercial fishing in the monument is prohibited, and opponents have argued that the cost recovery mechanism treads too closely to commercial activity.
Proponents of cost recovery said a permitting system will encourage Native Hawaiian cultural practices in the monument by allowing fishers to recoup the costs for a fishing trip, which they estimated to be about $15,000 for three days’ worth of food, gas, bait and other items.
But despite proponents repeating the argument that Native Hawaiians and cultural practices would only benefit with cost recovery, Wespac member Shae Kamakaala has argued that the traditional uses of the monument expansion area did not include fishing for food.
“I think we’re pushing the issue because … I’ve heard testimonies that are adverse to that, and looking into the history of the creation of the original monument, I understand subsistence as not a cultural practice in this area,” Kamakaala said Wednesday before the Council made its decision last week.
William Aila Jr., chair of the monument’s Reserve Advisory Council, said Native Hawaiians wouldn’t go out to the expansion area for cultural purposes when they can catch fish close to shore.
Nihoa, the youngest of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, is about 130 miles from Kauai and 280 miles from Honolulu.
“Why are you going to go up there when you have fish available right off your shoreline?” he said Sunday in an interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. “You wouldn’t go to some other ahupuaa or some other district to catch fish; your responsibility is to take care of the fish that you have in your area and have a reciprocal relationship with them.”
In August the Papahanaumokuakea Native Hawaiian Cultural Working Group submitted written testimony to Wespac also opposing the inclusion of “customary exchange,” saying instead that it would be “harmful and incompatible with known traditions specific to this region.”
Wespac consists of 13 voting members, nine of whom voted to approve the noncommercial fishing permitting system. Two voters abstained and two others voted against it.
The two dissenters were Kamakaala and fellow council member David Sakoda, who represents the state of Hawaii. Sakoda, the commercial fisheries program manager for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Aquatic Resources, said cost recovery would constitute commercial activity under state law.
He also said that with separate permits for noncommercial fishing and Native Hawaiian subsistence fishing, enforcing the $15,000 limit or even the individual permits would be difficult, but allowing the sale of fish opens the door for prohibited commercial fishing in the monument’s expansion area.
“How would you enforce that someone’s going to limit how much they sell?” Sakoda asked the council. “If someone brought back fish under a noncommercial fishing permit, there’s no way to (ensure) that no one’s going to slip them some cash for a fish that they give them. … Once (fish) gets back to the main Hawaiian Islands, you’ve lost sight of it already.”
Wespac, to quell the concerns about commercial fishing in the expansion area, also decided to prohibit “trip mixing” — noncommercial and cultural fishing in the same trip. Additionally, recouped costs for fishing trips cannot include vessel maintenance and “external” costs of the trip.
The council voted on the fishing regulation recommendations as part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s effort to designate the monument as a national marine sanctuary, which is meant to establish conservation benefits to the region.
Aila said he doesn’t believe NOAA will accept Wespac’s noncommercial-fishing recommendations, which he said aren’t consistent with the goals of the sanctuary.
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