A new Hawai'i marine conservation initiative, Fair Catch, will operate under the slogan, "Take what you need, not what you can."

The collaboration of The Nature Conservancy of Hawai'i, Malama Hawai'i and the Washington, D.C.-based ocean conservation group SeaWeb is designed to support measures to restore the productivity of nearshore waters in the Islands and to encourage sustainable activities along the coastline.

Fair Catch is launching itself by leaping into the issue of lay net fishing around the main Hawaiian Islands. It has released an extensive poll of Hawai'i residents that indicates overwhelming support for restrictions on fishing with these nets, with a significant majority favoring a total ban on the use of the nets.

The organization timed its formation to coincide with a series of statewide hearings by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources on proposed new regulations on the nets. The state's proposal would ban the nets in some parts of the Islands, and add new restrictions in others, including limiting the length of time nets can be in the water, how long they can remain unattended and how many nets can be used in a given area.

Fair Catch hired the research firm QMark to conduct a statewide poll on fishing issues. The telephone survey reached 1,022 Hawai'i residents, and the firm calculated that the poll has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

The poll found that two-thirds of residents feel the condition of the ocean around Hawai'i has gotten worse in recent years, and between eight and nine out of 10 believe pollution is responsible. Three-quarters believe fishing is also a threat, with more blaming commercial than recreational fishing.

Only about half said they are knowledgeable about lay nets, but once the nets were explained, roughly three-quarters said they support restrictions on net use. The lay nets commonly used in the Islands are found in stretches 125 feet long and 7 feet high, with a row of weights at the bottom and floats at the top.

Three-quarters of all residents said they support restrictions, and about two-thirds support an outright statewide ban on the nets.

Fair Catch also released a scientific report on nets that was produced by veteran fish and reef scientists John Randall, Charles Birkeland, Richard Pyle and Randall Kosaki, in which they support a total ban. Traditional Hawaiian gillnets were handmade, valuable, fragile and carefully used. But cheap modern monofilament gillnets have led to nets being left overnight, and being abandoned when they were too badly tangled in the reef, and taking large numbers of unintended catch like turtles, sharks and fish that aren't taken for eating, the authors said.

Recreational fisherman Bruce Blankenfeld of Niu Valley said strong restrictions are needed.

"I've seen 10 nets linked for more than a thousand feet, draped like curtains inside the reef. That violates our values of taking only what you need and leaving some for tomorrow," he said. "We just may have to stop laying net for a while to give our fish a chance to recover."

Fair Catch will work for expanded scientific study off the nearshore biological resources, involving citizens in monitoring the coastlines and improved enforcement of fishery regulations, the organization said in a prepared statement.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.