Reef reserve competes with sanctuary goals

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer

Federal officials told a citizens advisory council for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands yesterday that Hawai'i will need to give up the security of existing regulations to gain the long-term protection provided by a national marine sanctuary.

Commerce Department representatives said work toward a national marine sanctuary — such as the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary — must be a public process that leaves all management options open. It can't give preference to an existing regulatory framework.

Members of the advisory council for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve tried to argue that the sanctuary process should simply adopt protections already in place, but at a Waikiki meeting yesterday they failed to convince people who ultimately control the process.

A key to the process is understanding the difference between the coral reef reserve and a national marine sanctuary.

In December 2000, toward the end of his last term in office, President Clinton issued a pair of executive orders to create a coral reef reserve in the islands and reefs lying some 1,000 miles beyond Kaua'i. The orders, setting specific kinds of protections for fish stocks and other marine life, also called for the Commerce Department to launch the process for turning the northern end of the Hawaiian archipelago into a national marine sanctuary.

The coral reef reserve is a one-of-a-kind federal program, without any guarantee of continued appropriations. A sanctuary would be one of many and would gain the support of an established federal bureaucracy.

The message from the Bush administration: If the reefs and atolls are to have the permanent protection of national marine sanctuary status, they will have to give up the security of the Clinton-era presidential order and accept a process that has the same goal but might accomplish it in different ways.

One of those ways could include increased fishing, if scientific studies indicate it would be at sustainable levels that did not damage the ecosystem and support "long-term comprehensive protection."

Some conservationists and their supporters, along with several members of the advisory council, asked for assurances that specific existing regulations are preserved.

"If the sanctuary is a significant departure from the protections under the reserve, I think it's going to be pretty hard for this council to support it," said Tim Johns, chairman of the reserve advisory council.

Dan Basta, director of the National Marine Sanctuary Program, insisted that while he can't make promises, his intent is to provide full protection for the remote, pristine reefs.

"I want to encourage you to be patient with the process," he said.

U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, a member of the House Resources Committee who helped lobby to establish the coral reef reserve, said he differs with the Bush administration on many issues, but believes it has honorable intentions toward the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

"We need to go ahead with the sanctuary and trust these guys to carry out the process," said Abercrombie, who did not attend yesterday's meeting.

Rick Gaffney, the recreational fishing representative on the council, said that a wide-open process could result in regulations that don't do an adequate job of protecting the resources. "We're worried about all the other possibilities. There are multiple places that this thing can go if we don't limit it," Gaffney said.

Paul Achitoff, an attorney with Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund and an advisory council member, said: "What we are looking for, I think, is a sanctuary that is no less protective than the executive order, but they won't go there."

One of the key issues for many concerned about conservation of the reefs is the economic uses to which it might be put — harvesting of precious coral, lobster trapping, fishing of various kinds, even ecotourism — and the potential of those uses to damage the reefs over the long term.

Several members of the advisory council have had battles with the government agency that oversees fishing and harvesting on the reefs: the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, which also falls under the Commerce Department.

Some said they fear that a national marine sanctuary under the Bush administration might lean more toward the fishing and harvesting of products in the islands than preservation interests.

Advisory council member Isaac Hall grew visibly frustrated at Commerce Department counsel Dan Cohen's refusal to commit to agency support of the existing regulatory framework. "I think we know where you're going," Hall said.

National Marine Sanctuary Program staff attorney Ted Beuttler conceded that if scientific studies showed a certain level of fishing could be carried out without damaging the resources, "we would be hard-pressed to prohibit those uses" in the absence of some other goal that would limit them.

Cohen and Basta suggested that the coral reef reserve is potentially vulnerable to political winds. It was created by a presidential "stroke of a pen," and could be negated as easily, Cohen said. Basta said a national marine sanctuary is the mechanism of choice "if you want to put in something that lives and breathes and carries on."

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