The agency charged with protecting the state’s natural resources has approved an environmental impact statement supporting the harvesting of tropical fish for the aquarium industry despite ongoing litigation over the issue.
At the request of Suzanne Case, chairwoman of the Board of Land and Natural Resources, the state published the final EIS in the Oct. 8 issue of The Environmental Notice, stating that the EIS is deemed statutorily approved because the Land Board, as the approving agency, did not make a determination within the 30 days allotted by law.
The board last year deadlocked 3-3 on the revised EIS submitted by the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council. A representative could not be reached for comment by press-time Tuesday.
The revised EIS maintained the group’s preference for an alternative that cuts the number of commercial aquarium fishing permits issued in the West Hawaii Regional Fishery Management Area from 10 to seven and reduces the allowable commercial catch from 40 to eight species. The fishery management area spans the entire coastline of West Hawaii, from Upolu Point in North Kohala to Ka Lae (South Point) in Ka‘u.
Only yellow tang, kole, orangespine unicornfish, potter’s angelfish, brown surgeonfish, Thompson’s surgeonfish, black surgeonfish and bird wrasse would be allowed to be taken, under the plan.
Earthjustice subsequently filed a lawsuit challenging acceptance of the EIS on behalf of a coalition of conservation groups, Native Hawaiian fishermen and cultural practitioners.
It was filed on behalf of Willie Kaupiko, a former member of the West Hawaii Fisheries Council and a longtime konohiki (caretaker) of the fisheries fronting Milolii Village; Kaimi Kaupiko, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner and subsistence fisherman; Mike Nakachi, a cultural practitioner who leads scuba diving tours; For the Fishes, a nonprofit committed to reef ecosystems; the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity and Kai Palaoa, an unincorporated association of Native Hawaiian religious and cultural practitioners that practice, preserve and perpetuate Hawaiian religious beliefs and practices associated with the ocean deity Kanaloa.
“Under this deeply flawed EIS, the aquarium trade could still degrade and further threaten Hawaii’s reefs and thus harm the people who depend upon them in so many ways,” Renee Umberger, founder and executive director of For the Fishes, said Monday.
An Oahu Circuit Court judge subsequently denied the group’s motion for summary judgment and on Sept. 12, issued a final judgment upholding the state agency’s approval. The plaintiffs subsequently filed an appeal.
“The fact that an appeal has been filed, by itself, does not affect the status of the (EIS), which acceptance has been upheld by the Circuit Court of the First Circuit,” Case said in her Oct. 3 letter to the Environmental Review Program in the state Office of Planning.
Umberger, however, maintains that just accepting the EIS doesn’t mean issuance of permits and fish collection can begin.
“The document published in The Environmental Notice of the ‘acceptance’ was procedural, but also perhaps premature, since Earthjustice filed our notice of appeal last month, as well,” Umberger said. “The denial of our (motion for summary judgment) did not lift the injunction which remains in place until further order from the court.”