Ban fishing, consultant
tells councilPreserving marine life means
a prohibition north of Kauai,
the expert recommends
Commercial fishing should be banned in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, an advisory council consultant said yesterday.
The prohibition is needed to preserve the ecological integrity of marine life in the islands north of Kauai, said Bruce Wilcox, a conservation biologist with the Sustainable Resources Group.
Wilcox made his recommendation to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve's Advisory Council yesterday in Honolulu. The council hired Wilcox's group to provide guidelines on managing fishing in the reserve if it becomes the nation's 14th National Marine Sanctuary, a process under way now.
The viability of an ecosystem is not the same as the viability of a fishery, Wilcox said.
Instead of looking at one target species of fish at a time, as has been done by fishery managers, "all fishing must be considered collectively," he told the council.
And though people often separate the Hawaiian archipelago into the Northwestern and the main Hawaiian Islands, they are really a single regional ecosystem, Wilcox said.
Fisherman Gary Dill, who has been fishing in the Northwestern Islands since 1988, said yesterday he disagrees "completely" with Wilcox's conclusion, calling it "extremist."
Dill, who serves as an alternate on the council but was not at yesterday's meeting, said he understood that the Sustainable Resources Group was "ordered to not have any preferred alternative in its report. ... It makes me really wonder what's going to be in their report."
Dill said he supports the idea of protecting the islands' coral reefs through a reserve or sanctuary. But he questions how fishing for onaga, ehu, opakapaka and other bottom fish in waters up to 1,500 feet deep could affect the reef.
The mission of protecting the coral reef "has been grabbed," Dill said. "We (fishermen) are very disturbed about that. It's gone from being simple coral reef protection to being the entire ecosystem."
Wilcox, also a University of Hawaii professor, insisted yesterday that "fishing pressure is unequivocally linked to coral reef ecosystem resilience."
As Wilcox's recommendation works through the bureaucracy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees national marine sanctuaries, Dill said, "we will shout, we will holler, we will scream."
Fishermen have an ally in the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which is expected to recommend continued fishing at some level in the islands.
Ocean Conservancy representative Cheri Recchia, who was at yesterday's meeting, praised Wilcox's recommendation.
If the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are made a no-fishing zone, it will be the first time that has happened in a National Marine Sanctuary, Recchia said.