President Obama's proposal to expand a marine sanctuary around seven U.S.-controlled islands and atolls in the central Pacific Ocean drew praise from scientists and conservationists, but has sparked opposition from the tuna industry.
WASHINGTON (SAVING SEAFOOD) — September 22, 2014 — The following is an excerpt from a story originally published in National Geographic on September 20:
President Obama's proposal in June to expand a marine sanctuary around seven U.S.-controlled islands and atolls in the central Pacific Ocean drew immediate praise from scientists and conservationists, but has since sparked opposition from representatives of the tuna industry, including fishermen in Hawaii who say it would threaten their livelihood.
Opposition From a Fishing Group
The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, based in Hawaii, had opposed the creation of the monument in 2009. At a boisterous town hall meeting in Honolulu in August and in a meeting at the White House on September 9, representatives of the council made their case against expansion, arguing that current fisheries laws adequately protect marine wildlife.
Simonds says the Hawaii-based longline fleet, which fishes for tuna and other large predatory fish, in 2000 set about 16 percent of its hooks in the area of the proposed monument expansion, marking the high point for fishing there.
That fishery is already a "global model" of sustainability, she says, although she notes that it could be improved. She'd like to see purse seine fishermen switched from vessel day-limits to a catch quota system, which currently governs longline fishermen and is a better way to control overfishing, she says.
But Conservation International's Kittinger says data from the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (which oversees international fishery agreements in the area) shows that, since 2008, less than four percent of the U.S. Pacific tuna catch came from within national waters, with just a fraction of that from within the proposed monument.
Simonds and her colleagues dispute that assessment. Sean Martin, who owns six commercial fishing boats and serves as president of the Hawaii Longline Association, says he and his colleagues frequently travel to the monument area, even though it is about 900 miles (1,450 kilometers) from Hawaii to the nearest of the seven islands.
Paul Dalzell, a senior scientist with the Western Pacific council, said, "Fishermen go where the fish are. Right now they're in the eastern Pacific." But he noted that they often move with the ocean's periodic temperature shifts.
During El Niño years fish tend to migrate toward the proposed monument expansion area, and the frequency of El Niños is expected to double due to climate change, says Dalzell.
Kittinger counters that, even during El Niño years, only 10 percent of the Pacific fleet's total catch comes from that region. But Dalzell says during the 1997 El Niño, 21 percent of the catch of Hawaii-based purse seine fishermen was taken from the monument area.
Martin, who has worked as a fisherman for about 40 years, told National Geographic that the Hawaii-based fleet is getting squeezed by increasing limits on the high seas and in the waters of other countries, as well as substantially higher usage fees to fish within the waters of other countries.
Martin notes that, while the expanded monument might not have a major impact on the overall Pacific fleet, it would hurt Hawaii's fishermen. The Hawaii-based fleet includes 145 active longline vessels and about 40 purse seine vessels, Martin says. "We're going to lose something," he says.
Kittinger believes the fishing community is most concerned about the precedent the new monument would set. "But there's a high benefit-to-cost ratio here; we stand to gain a lot and lose very little to the fishing industry," he says.
Read the full story at National Geographic