A permitting structure for aquarium fishing off the waters of West Hawaiʻi Island was set for approval last week — but was delayed at the last minute.
On Friday, the Board of Land and Natural Resources was scheduled to vote on the proposed structure for a controversial West Hawai‘i Regional Fishery Management Area permit, which covers the entire western coast of the island.
The state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Aquatic Resources submitted the permitting framework and recommended its approval.
The board was nearing approval, following a roughly four-hour public hearing, until a member of the public called for a contested case.
BLNR Chair Dawn Chang was told she could keep discussing the issue, but said, “I am uncomfortable with us continuing to deliberate considering the request for a contested case.”
Aquarium fishing in the management area has been an ongoing issue for years and has involved multiple court rulings, including one from the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court.
Since the latest ruling in January 2023, the land department said it’s been able to issue permits.
Instead, it’s been working on a framework to ensure the industry won’t lead to overfishing or infringe upon Native Hawaiian cultural practices, which are the primary concerns surrounding aquarium fishing.
Charles Young, who represented the Hawaiʻi Island Aha Moku in written testimony, called for the contested case.
He also spoke to the board as a “beneficiary of the public trust,” alluding to the state’s requirement to care for Hawaiʻi’s natural resources, especially with respect to protecting Native Hawaiian gathering rights.
He said a test to determine if state actions infringe on those rights, called the Ka Paʻakai analysis, wasn’t properly conducted for the structure of the aquarium permits.
“Ka Paʻakai analysis requires that you talk to the citizens and the residents and the communities in West Hawaiʻi, and that has not happened,” Young said.
He added, “You cannot make this decision today, I think, based on a faulty incomplete Ka Paʻakai analysis. … If you get to a decision making, you need to consider that this analysis as required by law is incomplete.”
There are limitations to the DAR’s proposal. Only seven aquarium permits would be handed out, and permitted fishers would only be allowed to collect eight species of fish.
Further, there were annual catch limits for every species and quotas for fishers.
Just before the contested case filing, the board had agreed to further restrictions. It was going to cut the total allowable catch for lauʻīpala, or yellow tang, in half from 200,000.
It had also nearly agreed to remove umaumalei, known also as the orange spine unicornfish, and kole, or the goldring surgeonfish, from the list altogether.
BLNR member Vernon Char said he was disappointed in the contested case filing.
“It had been my hope that we could arrive at a compromise by reducing the number (of species) and so forth, and taking a look at this one year to see if the concerns were accurate or not,” he said.
“It would disappoint me, and I’m a lawyer, to get stuck in law stuff again because I don’t think it’ll help the situation," he added.
The board also noted that it can’t actually ban aquarium fishing — only regulate it.
The pro-fishing crowd, many of whom are fishers themselves, argue it’s a sustainable practice that helps residents and the local economy.
Young has until Sept. 3 to file a written form of his contested case.
Board member Kaiwi Yoon, who testifiers noted as being opposed to aquarium fishing, was not present at the meeting.
