Review mixed on Hawaii preserve

By Jean Christensen

AP Writer

HONOLULU (AP) — Through ancient chants and stories from elders, Cha Smith feels a powerful attachment to the remote northwestern Hawaiian Islands and their pristine waters, home to nearly 70 percent of the United States’ coral reefs.

In Hawaiian mythology “coral is so revered,” said Smith, director of the environmental group Kahea. “It’s what feeds the whole life cycle — creates the algae that feeds the fish that feed the people.”

So to her, it was only right that President Clinton set aside 84 million acres underwater around the northwestern Hawaiian Islands for the largest U.S. nature preserve.

Though the designation aims to help save the coral reefs and wildlife that inhabit the area, others worry it will hurt Hawaii’s fishing industry.

“Just with a stroke of a pen, we’re out a couple hundred thousand dollars, at least,” lobster fisherman Jerry Ray said.

The executive order issued Monday caps the already limited fishing at current levels and sets new restrictions on nearshore fishing on some islands and reefs.

Critics say it will destroy the Hawaiian lobster fishery and dramatically reduce takes on local favorites like snapper and sea bass, sending prices soaring and dealing a blow to Hawaii’s economic recovery.

Local fisherman are still reeling from a federal judge’s order this summer limiting the Hawaii long-line fishing industry while the National Marine Fisheries Service completes an environmental assessment of the industry’s impact on endangered sea turtles.

That order led to warnings — denounced as scare tactics by environmental groups — that Hawaii’s sashimi-loving public could be forced to cut back on raw tuna in favor of mainland-style hors d’oeuvres of cheese and crackers.

The $1 million lobster fishery — mainly confined to the northwestern Hawaiian Islands — also has been closed indefinitely because of court action. The executive order would close the fishery for at least 10 years, critics said.

“The president’s order should be renamed the new Hawaiian Territorial Act as it gives the great white father in Washington control of Hawaiian resources,” said Jim Cook, a long-line fisherman and former chairman of the Western Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Council.

The council’s members say the reserve would close all commercial fisheries except bottomfishing in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands and would close nearly one-third of the area’s bottomfishing grounds.

Nearly half of Hawaii’s commercially caught bottomfish — such as pink and red snapper, and sea bass — comes from the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, the council said.

The new Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve will encompass the string of 10 tiny islands and atolls extending 1,200 miles northwest of the main Hawaiian chain.

Coral grows an average of an inch a year in warmer waters, and even more slowly in the cooler waters of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

“It really can’t be managed like any other resource,” Smith said. “We really have to look at it with a special eye, because the nutrient replacement is so slow.”