As scientists, fishermen and Native Hawaiian kupuna serving on the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve Advisory Council, it's our job to provide advice and recommendations to the National Marine Sanctuaries Office on a course of action that will maintain the ecological integrity of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, using the best available science and the precautionary approach.

Coral reefs, the "rainforests" of the ocean, are one of the world's primary reserves of biodiversity, and most are in a serious decline because of a combination of global warming, invasive species, coastal pollution, irresponsible tourism and destructive fishing practices.

The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands coral reef ecosystems are still healthy and nearly pristine due to a number of factors, but fisheries management by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WESPAC) is not one of them. The very remoteness of these islands and atolls helps protect them. For six months out of the year, it is too rough for most bottom fishermen to safely fish these waters. The distances are great, and the costs incurred — fuel, ice, bait, gear, insurance and time away from home — only barely justify the rewards.

Roy Morioka, WESPAC's chairman, claims that his agency has "contributed immensely" to maintaining ecosystem diversity in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. The record does not support that claim. Longline fishing is prohibited within 50 nautical miles from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, thanks in part to the request of local fishermen asking WESPAC to close the area in the early 1990s because of concerns about the impact of longline fishing on regional pelagic fish stocks and interference with monk seals.

Morioka dismisses the suggestion that the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands could serve as a fish replenishment area for the main Hawaiian Islands based on one ocean current study. However, scientists are only beginning to study the degree of interconnectedness between the two areas.

Transport up and down the Hawaiian archipelago is very species-specific and depends on many things, including complex currents, life history, etc. For example, the subsurface countercurrent running along Necker Ridge from the southwest to the middle of the archipelago is a likely transport mechanism for bringing back developing lobster larvae. WESPAC's own data indicate that deep-water snappers such as opakapaka are genetically identical throughout the Hawaiian chain, and tagging studies have already shown that ulua swim the open-ocean channels between islands.

Of the 20 to 25 percent of marine species that are unique to the archipelago, most can still be found in the main Hawaiian Islands, but numbers of fish are small because of continuous overfishing and destructive fishing methods such as lay gillnet fishing and night scuba spear fishing.

The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands contain possibly the last large predator-dominated coral reef ecosystem on the planet. Several species of the reef-building genus Acropora are locally abundant there, but are not found in the main Hawaiian Islands. Reefs in the main Hawaiian Islands are in serious trouble under the stress of alien invasive algae, which have overgrown many coral reefs. This hasn't happened in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands largely because boat traffic is very low. Eighty percent of all invasive aquatic species are spread by vessel hulls.

There are over 350 invasive aquatic species established in the main Hawaiian Islands, and every vessel traveling from those islands to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands has the potential of spreading them to the area — the more traffic, the greater the threat.

Already 12 invasive marine invertebrate, fish and algal species have been recorded in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

In terms of the amount of coral reef in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands compared to the rest of the nation, the government has not yet completed coral ecosystem maps for any location. In the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, about half of the reef area less than 60 feet deep has been mapped, and there are extensive coral reefs that exist deeper than that.

It is also not yet known whether the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands bottom fishery is ecologically harmless. It is highly likely that taking many thousands of pounds of bottom fish out of these cold-water, low-productivity coral ecosystems year after year impacts them. Furthermore, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands bottom fish populations may indeed be stressed, particularly in the waters around Nihoa and Necker Islands, where stocks have declined to a "borderline" condition, according to WESPAC.

Science is not about "fishing" for data that support your self-interest or beliefs. It is about looking at all the available relevant data and drawing the most empirically and logically consistent conclusion based on the total picture. Our job is to protect this rare natural resource, one of the last wild places on Earth.

Linda Paul, Isabella Abbott, William Aila, Bill Gilmartin, Rick Gaffney, Buzzy Agard, Kem Lowry and Gail Grabowsky are members of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve Advisory Council. They wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.