Longline debate far from over
Solution must apply to all within the fishery
| • | Industry plan was self-serving and illegal |
By Judith P. Gurthertz
Chairwoman of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council
The National Marine Fisheries Service recently provided U.S. District Judge David Ezra with a court-ordered comprehensive environmental impact statement for the pelagic fisheries of the Western Pacific Region.
The impact statement covers not only the Hawai'i longline fishery, but also handline, pole-and-line, trolling and other fisheries for open-ocean species conducted in waters surrounding Hawai'i, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and eight U.S. Pacific island possessions.
In response, Judge Ezra modified his injunction, which had shut down the entire Hawai'i longline fleet for more than two weeks. As the fishery accounts for about 80 percent of Hawai'i's commercial fish landings, stores and restaurants were facing empty shelves or lower-quality imported fish as had been predicted.
According to the judge, the modified injunction will "strike a careful balance between preservation of endangered species, in this case several species of sea turtles, while minimizing to the greatest extent possible the economic impact upon the fishing industry" and "also has the added effect of helping to preserve ... the bounty of Hawai'i's waters."
There are two species of sea turtles listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, the leatherback turtle and the hawksbill turtle. Loggerhead, green, and olive ridley turtles are listed as threatened, except the endangered breeding population of Mexico olive ridley and endangered nesting population of green turtles on the Pacific coast of Mexico.
However, there is some discussion in Mexico that the olive ridley should be considered recovered.
According to the impact statement, based on observer data of Hawai'i longline vessels in 1991-98, "there were no recorded interactions with hawksbill turtles" and "green sea turtles have been infrequently encountered."
While the number of observed leatherback takes has also been small (38 in five years), its endangered status causes it to be the species of principal concern with regard to incidental take in the Hawai'i-based pelagic longline fishery and other commercial fisheries of the Pacific.
As noted in the impact statement, the Hawai'i longline fishery accounts for about 14 million of the 570 million longline hooks set by all fleets in the Pacific. When other fishing methods are considered — e.g., purse seine and coastal gillnets — the Hawai'i fishery accounts for about 1 percent of the Pacific fishery.
While the modified court injunction allowed some Hawai'i longline boats to ice up and leave port, it prohibits Hawai'i and other U.S. Pacific island longline vessels from using shallow-set fishing gear in the entire Pacific Ocean north of the equator.
This provision directly impacts 34 Hawai'i vessels targeting swordfish, owned and operated almost entirely by Vietnamese Americans.
These fishermen are left with two options. They can re-outfit with deep-set gear to target tuna, which would result in a 46 percent increase in the number of Hawai'i longline vessels targeting tuna and a decline in the total gross revenue of the Hawai'i-based longline fishery by approximately $4.3 million or 10.5 percent.
Or, they can shut down their Hawai'i fishing operations entirely, which would reduce the total gross revenues of the Hawai'i-based longline fleet by approximately $17.6 million or 46 percent. The injunction against shallow-set gear by U.S. Pacific islanders will also negatively impact the budding Guam domestic fishery.
Hawai'i longline vessels targeting tuna are also impacted by the modified court order. During April and May they cannot operate in their traditional tuna fishing grounds for that time of year — i.e., 1.9 million square miles of international waters and national waters surrounding the Republic of Kiribati and six U.S. Pacific island possessions located south of Hawai'i.
They will have to locate fish in other areas but are limited on the amount of exploration they can conduct.
According to a 1996 report on the fishery, the average cost of an additional traveling day per trip by Hawai'i-based longliners in 1993 was $4,000 and the net return for a Hawaii-based longliner averaged $27,000, from an annual revenue of $504,000.
An added day of looking for tuna per trip (vessels average eight trips per year) would leave a vessel in the red.
When considering whether the modified court injunction will preserve sea turtles and the bounty of our ocean, it is well to remember that other U.S. domestic and foreign fleets, which account for 99 percent of the fishing occurring in the Pacific Ocean, can continue to fish in most of the 1.9 million square miles of waters that are closed to the Hawai'i vessels.
And, they can continue to use shallow-set gear to target Pacific swordfish.
The enviromental impact statement says: "International cooperation is a must to achieve conservation goals for protected species such as sea turtles that live in, and travel across, many national boundaries."
The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, the Hawai'i longline fishermen and even the impact statement, itself, have provided an alternative that could obtain this goal without closing the Hawai'i swordfish fishery, the budding Guam domestic commercial fishery and the April-May traditional grounds of the Hawai'i longline tuna fishery.
This alterantive is to work with the fishing industry to develop gears and methods that can be utilized by all domestic and foreign longline fleets.
A similar approach was successfully undertaken by the eastern Pacific purse-seine industry.
We need common-sense solutions like this, and not symbolic gestures, to create a real win-win future for the U.S. Pacific islands and for the sea turtles.
A former public safety director and police chief of Guam, Dr. Judith P. Gurthertz is a professor at the University of Guam.
