Hawai‘i now has a recreational fishing license for nonresidents.
The Board of Land and Natural Resources has approved the license to comply with a state law passed in 2021.
The law requires those who don’t live in Hawaiʻi to pay $20 to $70, depending on the license length, to fish recreationally in state waters.
Before the law was created, recreational licenses were not required for anyone in the state.
The state Department of Land and Natural Resources Division of Aquatic Resources has said the licenses would provide stable funding for local marine fishery resources. Supporters of the 2021 law made similar arguments. DLNR expects the new licenses will generate $1 million each year.
But some, including Mauna Kea Trask, a Native Hawaiian attorney, worry a fishing fee for Hawaiians who live out of state means their traditional and customary rights will not be protected.
“My position as Native Hawaiian attorney is that residency is not reasonable, simply because it's not within the definition of a Native Hawaiian. These are our resources, these are Native Hawaiian traditional and customary practices. Nowhere in the law does that say that you can't do it because you’ve got to live in California or Washington or Vegas,” he told the BLNR.
There was a suggestion to allow Native Hawaiians who don’t live in Hawaiʻi to be exempt from the proposed rule. But Land Board Chair Dawn Chang is worried that a substantial change to the license would require that it go back through the entire rulemaking process.
“The alternative is you could implement (the license), and if we are really adversely impacting a lot of non-resident Hawaiians, we can amend the rules through the data collection,” she said.
