Neighbor Islands
Northwestern islands subject of wrangling

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer

From the air, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are wide patches of aqua shallows and yellow sand, green and brown islets, all amid the vast, dark blue Central Pacific.

On maps, they appear as a complex series of overlays, with parts controlled by the state, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service. The Coast Guard oversees pollution control and other functions, and the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council develops fishing, lobstering and coral collection plans.

Now, those agencies are making room for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, which is less than a year old.

The reserve, created in the final hours of the Clinton administration, is a federal body whose existence is tenuous. Bush administration officials are reviewing the reserve and other last-minute "legacy" executive orders by the former president.

But Robert Smith, former head of the Fish and Wildlife Service Pacific Region, is plowing ahead as the reserve's coordinator. He's acquiring financing, building a staff and already laying the groundwork for converting it into a national marine sanctuary. That way, it will have the security of an established federal bureaucracy.

"This is currently the only reserve of its kind," Smith said.

It is also at the center of a maelstrom of competing interests, largely because of the perception that it treads on the turf of other agencies.

Smith's agency falls under the National Ocean Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, within the Department of Commerce.

It has a massive area of responsibility: 1,200 miles running from 50 nautical miles southeast of Nihoa to 50 nautical miles northwest of Kure Atoll. The area is 100 nautical miles wide.

"It looks like a set of link sausages" on a map, Smith said.

The reserve does not include the emergent lands of the region. The rocky islands, sandbars and coral spits are under the control of state or other federal agencies. The state controls the area from the emergent lands to three miles out, except Midway, which is under federal control.

With certain exceptions and potential conflicts, the new reserve covers the area from the state's three-mile boundary out to 50 miles from land. That can include waters ranging from a few dozen feet deep to a couple of miles deep.

Smith argues that the Clinton designation was because of an increasing realization in the United States that "we need to protect certain areas of concern."

There are important links among the neighboring parts of any island environment, between the beaches and the sand flats, the coral beds and blue water, the nutrient-rich upwellings that wash over the reefs with the currents, winds and tides.

But protection of a complex ecological system like the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is a difficult thing with so many agencies involved, and the potential for conflict is great.

"Right now, the governance of that area is kind of a briar patch," Smith said.

In determining how to proceed, Smith leans on a 15-member citizens advisory group that has met three times.

"He's working with the reserve council and has already produced a reserve operations plan. He's doing an incredible job," said Stephanie Fried, senior scientist with Environmental Defense, a national organization dedicated to protecting clean air, water, oceans and ecosystems.

Gov. Ben Cayetano initially opposed establishing the reserve, but state Land Board chairman Gil Coloma-Agaran said most of Cayetano's concerns have been met. The state has a voice in the process, with a seat for a land board member on the citizens advisory group, he said.

The most serious challenge comes from the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, a policy-making organization established by federal law to protect fishery resources while maintaining opportunities for domestic fishing at sustainable levels.

The council monitors fisheries in a 1.5-million-square-mile area that includes Hawai'i, Samoa and the Western Pacific. Its management plans are enforced by the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Fishery council officials say the reserve would threaten plans for the governance of fishing, coral collecting and similar activities in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

Although the Clinton executive order creating the reserve allows most commercial fishing to continue, the reserve could trump the council by banning fishing in reserve areas.

The main form of fishing near the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is bottomfishing with poles for onaga, 'opakapaka and other species. There is a lobster fishery, but it is closed. While there is a plan for precious coral harvesting, no such harvesting has been authorized.

"We believe in sustainable fisheries. The fishing that is going on there is not harmful to the ecosystem," said fishery council director Kitty Simonds.

Her group asked the Bush administration to review the Clinton reserve designation, particularly with respect to governance of fishing. The reserve can oversee the rest of the coral reef ecosystem, where there's plenty of work to do, but should leave fisheries to the expertise of the council, she said.

Those supporting the reserve describe the council's opposition in harsh terms.

"West Pac has launched a tobacco industry-type campaign," Fried said. "This has been a blow-by-blow campaign by a tiny interest group. Their authority deals with their ability to do fishery management plans, and they're afraid of losing it."

Maui fisherman Isaac Harp, vice chairman of the reserve council, said the fishery council overplays the dangers posed by the reserve. In fact, the reserve does not ban fishing — except in 4 percent of Northwestern Hawaiian Islands bottomfishing areas — and has the potential to improve fisheries there and in the main islands, he said.

"The fish there replenish marine life in the main Hawaiian Islands through larval dispersion. The reserve is like an insurance policy for the main Hawaiian Islands," Harp said.

Fried said the fishery council's opposition represents a huge threat to the reserve, which the national environmental community is working hard to counter.

"In the last two weeks, over 17,000 people have sent faxes to the secretary of commerce asking him to support the executive orders," she said.

Smith hopes soon to begin the formal process of converting the reserve into a national marine sanctuary, a sister to the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary established in 1997. It covers the waters surrounding Maui County, the Penguin Banks off West Moloka'i, and areas off North Kaua'i, north and east O'ahu, and northwest of the Big Island.

It is his most important long-term goal, he said.

"I see the reserve as a place-holder. It's time for us to thoughtfully consider what's needed up there in terms of extra conservation of the ocean. A marine sanctuary will bring to it value-added synergy," he said.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808)245-3074.