An experiment in community-based fishery management on Kaua‘i’s north shore appears to be working, according to a five-year assessment by University of Hawaiʻi researchers.
It’s been more than eight years since a group of families from Hā‘ena, Kaua‘i, established the Hā‘ena Community-Based Subsistence Fishing Area.
Presley Wann, president of Hui Maka‘āinana O Makana, said the goal is to ensure a sustainable fishery for future generations of local families that depend on the ocean for food and cultural practices.
"We're finding that state rules and regulations are not adaptive. That’s what kept our families here alive, surviving and thriving. The rules and regulations don’t reflect what’s going on in the ocean," Wann said.
"It’s gotta be community-driven. It’s gotta be from the people of the place, because they know that place better than everyone else," he said.
That is the simple idea behind the CBSFA designation — the community creates rules regulating catch limits, size limits, species limits and more.
UH researcher Dr. Kuʻulei Rodgers and her colleagues at the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology have been monitoring the impact of the CBSFA on the local fishery since its inception.
"This CBSFA is working. It's not saying every CBSFA will work but it's very hopeful because this CBSFA did work, and it worked very well," Rodgers said.
In the first year of the CBSFA, Rodgers found the abundance of fish, biomass and diversity were higher inside the CBSFA than outside. But she said the 2018 floods had a detrimental impact on the Hā‘ena fishery and that it is still recovering.
"So the longer monitoring you can do, the clearer the picture. If you just have a snapshot of a few years, that’s not saying a lot," she said.
Luna Kekoa with the Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Aquatics said the state is also considering other factors in concluding whether the CBSFA is successful.
"Okay, we made this rule in this area. Are people able to even practice the way they practiced before? Are the resources there for them? Do people even access the area? So it's looking at it on a more holistic level and not just on an ecological level," Kekoa said.
Kekoa said what sets the CBSFA apart from other marine resource management tools is the focus on protecting and perpetuating traditional fishing practices.
"And so it's a tool that makes sure that we can keep on practicing and fishing the way we did. I'm not excluding folks but saying like, 'Hey, if you like come fish in this area, this is how we fish, this is how we take, this is how much we take,'" he said.
Hāʻena was the first community to receive a CBSFA designation in 2015. Since then, fishing communities in Miloli‘i on Hawai‘i Island and Kīpahulu on Maui have followed suit.
"I think we learned we're on the right track. What is the alternative? That's the question. CBSFAs are not the answer, but they are a solution," Wann said.
