The first projects on both islands involve the installation of mooring pins, which let boats tie up without their anchors repeatedly tearing up the coastal sea floor. Holes are drilled in the rocky bottoms at popular anchorages and pins cemented into place. The pins are attached by cables to buoys to which boats can tie up.

"We're sacrificing a little tiny area to save acres and acres of coral from anchors that are dropped over the side repeatedly and chains that drag across coral beds," said Hannah Bernard, president of the Hawai'i Wildlife Fund, which facilitates and handles the cash for the Maui Reef Fund.

The Maui Reef Fund program has refurbished mooring pins at five Lana'i sites and is replacing and repairing mooring pins around Maui. The Big Island fund is securing permitting for five new mooring pins along the Kona coast.

Bernard said that future Maui projects include working toward getting a sewage pump-out station at Ma'alaea Harbor, establishment of an artificial reef to help alleviate pressure on natural reefs, developing reef education programs and supporting state conservation enforcement programs.

Marni Herkes, volunteer administrator of the Big Island Reef Fund, said that after mooring pins, the fund's priority is to establish a Web site that provides extensive information about coastal conservation efforts on the island. The Big Island Reef Fund is managed through the Malama Kai Foundation in Waimea.

The Nature Conservancy of Hawai'i helped establish the Reef Fund programs to protect shoreline resources, concluding that users of those resources would help pay for conservation programs, said Kim Hum, the conservancy's acting marine director.

"Similar programs in other parts of the world have demonstrated that most ocean users, particularly divers and snorkelers, are willing to help fund programs that protect the marine environment," Hum said.

The program is less than two months old, and about $7,000 on the two islands had been raised at the time of the first tally. But lots more cash is expected. On Maui, an estimated 1 million visitors take tours to Molokini islet alone.

"The potential for this program is huge," Hum said.

Bernard said that even small amounts go a long way. In the repairs to the Lana'i island moorings, tour operators provided transportation, labor and some of the materials, requiring minimal outlays from the fund.

"There has been quite a bit of in-kind donation," she said. Also, much of the old equipment that is replaced can be refurbished and used again at other moorings.

Participants in the programs say they recognize that government is strapped for cash for conservation programs and are pleased that users themselves can help do some conservation work.

"Government budgets are not sufficient, particularly in Hawai'i where government funding for marine management is among the lowest in the nation," Bernard said.