Some fishermen open to buyout proposals
Three of the eight boats that fish in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands want to hear more about a private foundation's offer to pay them to stop fishing there, a foundation spokesman said yesterday.
But the owner of one of the fishing boats said he and other boat owners do not want to make a deal with the Pew Charitable Trust.
Instead, those fishermen would prefer talking with the federal government about possible buyouts of their fishing permits, said fisherman Gary Dill.
Or they would rather fish the full five years they are allowed to continue under the new Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, Dill said.
Jay Nelson, with the Pew Charitable Trust, seeks to get all eight permitted Northwestern boats to quit fishing in Hawaii's most remote and pristine islands before a presidential proclamation requires it in 2011.
"If the federal government is talking to these fishermen about compensation, then that would partly explain why some of them are not willing to talk to us," Nelson said yesterday.
Nelson commented after Bill Robinson, administrator for the Pacific office of the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service, confirmed that his agency is gathering information about the value of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands fishery.
Though no official buyout talks between fishermen and the government have begun, U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye asked the Fisheries Service to look into it, Robinson said yesterday.
Nelson's buyout effort began in July, about a month after President Bush created the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument. He had originally asked the eight fishermen to respond by the end of August, but has extended his deadline to the end of September.
"If the federal government wants to spend that kind of money and we can save our money, that's great," Nelson said of the news of a possible federal buyout. But he said a privately funded buyout could be accomplished more quickly than a government one -- and would not cost the taxpayer.
But according to Dill and fisherwoman Timm Timoney, the Pew buyout effort has been disrespectful of the fishing boat owners and not looked at the bigger picture.
"There's a quarter-million pounds of bottom fish we bring in," Dill said. "What about anybody else in industry, auction block guys, captains and crews?" he asked.
Nelson said yesterday that the Pew offer could go beyond the boat owners, but the fishermen have to start talking with them to get anywhere.
Meanwhile, government officials are starting to iron out other aspects of managing the vast ocean refuge established June 15 by Bush:
» Starting this week, all boats stopping in monument waters must have an electronic vessel-monitoring system that shows their location at all times, and all U.S. vessels must inform officials when they are transiting the 140,000-square-mile area.
» Hawaiian elders are assisting government officials with a Hawaiian language name for the monument, said Aulani Wilhelm, NOAA monument superintendent.
» In September or October the three co-trustees of the monument -- NOAA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources -- will hold public meetings to explain how the monument will operate, DLNR Director Peter Young said.