When President Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing commercial fishing in the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument last week, a familiar face stood to his left in the Oval Office.
The executive director of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council was there. Kitty Simonds has served on the council for decades. She's the first Native Hawaiian woman to lead the agency.
Simonds said she attended at the invitation of American Samoa U.S. House Delegate Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, who had been writing to the administration about the plight of the territory's fishing industry.
Speaking to The Conversation on Tuesday morning, Simonds shared the viewpoint of the commercial fishers who will now be allowed to operate in waters at least 50 miles offshore.
Opponents fear the order will hurt conservation efforts. Simonds said it's about fairness for U.S. longliners in Hawaiʻi, Guam and American Samoa.
Interview Highlights
On Trump's executive order
KITTY SIMONDS: This action of the president actually opened up the waters from 50 to 200 [nautical miles] for Wake, Johnston, and Jarvis. And those areas are very important. Johnston is for the Hawaiʻi longline fishery, because it's closest to Hawaiʻi, and Jarvis is closest to American Samoa, where those 13 vessels can fish in U.S. waters and not compete on the high seas with China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, which essentially, what both of our fisheries have to do now, because of the monuments. For example, our Hawaiʻi longline fishery only fishes in 17% of the Hawaiʻi EEZ. They have to be outside the 200-mile zone. If you look at Global Fishing Watch, you can see where all the foreign boats are fishing, right on the edges of our EEZs in the Pacific.
On difficulties for American Samoa and Hawaiʻi longline fishers
SIMONDS: If we're able to fish in our own EEZs, we'll be able to catch the fish before the foreign countries are out there. For now, we're out there fishing right alongside them. And it's, frankly, unfair, because our EEZs, at least, are zero to 50 miles. We've been protecting that, Fish and Wildlife Service, the council of NOAA Fisheries, for 30 years, at least, 30-plus years. So I did want to clear up any misunderstanding, misinformation, disinformation, about zero to 50 miles, because zero to 50 miles continues to be closed to fishing.
On competing with fishers from foreign countries
SIMONDS: Their fish come into Hawaiʻi, and their fish undercut our own fisheries. So there are a lot of other issues surrounding all of this, in terms of trade and not identifying the country where the fish come from. For example, let's take poke. Visitors, which is one of our three economic drivers here, come to Hawaiʻi, and they want to eat poke. It's famous all over the world. Do they know that that fish came from China, went to Vietnam, was treated and added vitamins and all sorts of things? And it's not identified. This is one of the things that we're working on. The Hawaiʻi longline industry is working with the Legislature so that the markets have to identify where the fish comes from. And the thing is that people have choices. If they want to buy the cheaper fish, fine, but at least tell them where the fish comes from. And that is a huge problem here and elsewhere.
Wespac kicks off a series of meetings with local fishers across the state tonight. To view the schedule, click here.
This interview aired on The Conversation on April 22, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m.
