DLNR launches seven Big Island talk-story sessions on marine management

Big Island fishers, shoreline users and tour operators are being asked to help shape a marine plan that could affect what can be taken, where people can fish and how nearshore reefs are managed from North Kohala to South Kona and East Hawaii.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources is bringing its Holomua Marine Initiative to Hawaii Island with seven community talk-story sessions in May, with stops in Kapaau, Paauilo, Hilo, Pāhoa, Nāālehu, Captain Cook and Kailua-Kona. Each session will run from 5 to 7:30 p.m., with doors opening at 4:30 p.m., and the department is asking residents to RSVP in advance.

The first session is set for May 5 in Kapaau and the final one for May 21 in Kailua-Kona, with the other meetings spread across the month. DLNR says the sessions are the opening step in forming a community-nominated Island Navigation Team that will draft an island-based management proposal for Hawaii Island’s marine resources.

That proposal could reach into the daily work of fishing families and the businesses that rely on healthy nearshore waters. DLNR says marine management areas can include gear restrictions, size and catch limits, or take restrictions on specific species. The department also says connected networks of those areas can improve biomass, species diversity and fish abundance, a sign that the plan could influence both conservation priorities and access rules.

Holomua is being pushed as a bottom-up process rather than a top-down directive. Luna Kekoa, the Division of Aquatic Resources ecosystem program manager, said public input is vital and that local and traditional knowledge will help keep the process flexible enough to fit Hawaii Island’s needs. West Hawaii Aquatic Biologist Chris Teague said each island is different, and Hawaii Island’s coastline, reefs and fishing practices vary from place to place.

The Hawaii Island process builds on a Maui pilot that began in October 2022. On Maui, the community-nominated Navigation Team is a 16-member hui representing 10 of the island’s 12 moku, and its draft recommendations have already gone through public information exchanges and revisions based on community feedback. DLNR says that draft is centered on four pillars: place-based planning, pono practices, monitoring and restoration, with issues ranging from fishing rules and enforcement to habitat restoration and land-based threats such as injection wells and sedimentation.

DLNR launched Holomua in 2016 in response to long-running declines in reefs and fisheries, and the initiative is meant to blend traditional ecological knowledge with contemporary research. On Hawaii Island, the next decisions will start with who shows up in May and which priorities they put on the record before the island’s management proposal is written.