Conservation groups say a Hawaiʻi Supreme Court ruling on aquarium fishing could threaten the local marine ecosystem.
The high court on Wednesday approved the legality of an environmental review to allow limited aquarium fishing around Hawaiʻi Island, leading to concerns about opening up the industry throughout the West Hawai‘i Regional Fishery Management Area.
“We are very concerned that today’s ruling will open the floodgates to destructive levels of commercial aquarium harvesting in Hawaiʻi’s waters,” said Rene Umberger, executive director of For the Fishes, in a statement.
For the Fishes is one of the groups that argued the review, or revised final environmental impact statement, wasn’t legally sufficient and didn’t contain all the necessary information for the state to make an informed decision.
“It’s disappointing that the court is upholding an insufficient environmental impact statement that fails to disclose and mitigate against known environmental consequences of this industry,” Umberger added.
The environmental impact statement was developed by the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council and submitted to the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ board, which is in charge of setting the guidelines for aquarium fishing permits.
The review details a plan to allow limited aquarium fishing in West Hawaiʻi that’ll ensure the industry is sustainable and beneficial to the state.
The state Board of Land and Natural Resources actually rejected the pet industry’s first environmental review, and in 2021 it split a vote 3-3 when the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council submitted the revised version.
But the board didn’t take further action on the matter, so by default the review was accepted by the board.
The groups For the Fishes, Earthjustice, the Center for Biological Diversity and others took the land department and the board to court over the acceptance of the RFEIS, saying in part that the land board was only given the pro-fishing side of the argument.
That argument was rejected by an environmental court, and this week the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court reaffirmed that ruling.
“The question is whether the RFEIS contains sufficient information such that BLNR could make a reasoned decision concerning the relevant environmental factors. Here, the RFEIS contains information from both sides of the issue,” the court opinion said.
It added, “BLNR had this information in front of it in the RFEIS, and chose to approve the RFEIS without zone limits.”
The fight over aquarium fishing in West Hawaʻii has been an issue for years. In 2017, the high court ruled that it required an environmental review according to the Hawaiʻi Environmental Policy Act.
Afterward, all existing aquarium permits were deemed void. That ruling led to PIJAC’s environmental reviews.
Even before the high court's ruling this week, the BLNR nearly passed a structure for aquarium permits. Last Friday it had verbally agreed to add extra limitations to aquarium fishing, but before voting it was blocked by a contested case filing.
