Senate weakens fishermen-backed bill
A compromise is in the works to allow public rule-making input
A state Senate committee gutted a fishery management bill yesterday.
The new Senate version of House Bill 1848 House Draft 2 "emphasizes community participation in marine managed areas," said its author Sen. Russell Kokubun (D, Kalapana-Volcano).
But that community input would not take away the state Department of Land and Natural Resources primary responsibility for managing fishing rules in state waters, the Senate version of the bill makes clear.
After four hours of testimony both for and against the House version at a Monday hearing of the Senate Water, Land, Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs Committee, which Kokubun chairs, he vowed to draft a compromise.
The Kokubun version of the bill would:
» Establish a Maka'i O Ke Kai (Stewards of the Sea) program, to allow community members to propose and influence fishing rule-making in their immediate area. The program also would offer matching state funds on a 2-to-1 basis to community groups with plans to restore and protect nearshore reef fish populations.
» Provide DLNR training to community volunteers on nearshore resource management, monitoring and enforcement.
» Set up a marine resource management advisory board, to advise the DLNR on nearshore fishery rules. The committee would include representatives from the Maka'i O Ke Kai groups, native Hawaiian fishermen, nonprofit organizations, recreational fishermen, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a marine scientist.
Dozens of pieces of written testimony by supporters of the House version of the bill said the DLNR had not heard fishermen's concerns and had offered too "severe" management solutions to the documented decline in nearshore fish catches since 1950.
"All islands have a lot of fish," Neil Kanemoto wrote in his testimony. "(We) will continue to have a lot of fish if our resources are properly managed, which is what this bill is asking for."
Among detractors of the House version of the bill were the DLNR, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, Malama Hawaii, Environmental Defense, the Community Conservation Network and the Conservation Council for Hawaii.
"This bill is a horror. It's an attempt to wrest control from the professionals in resource management and to give control of our marine resources completely over to those who want to make a profit," said Tina Owens, of the Big Island group Lost Fish Coalition, at Monday's hearing.
DLNR Director Peter Young told lawmakers in his testimony that the bill would usurp the public rule-making process and require data that does not exist.
The original bill could have erased new regulations for lay gill nets and a ban on the use of the nets in state waters off parts of Oahu and all of Maui that took nearly a decade -- including a task force and multiple public meetings -- to put in place.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.