 Aloha, welcome to Think Tech. I'm Dean Sen Sui. I'll be your host today. I'm sitting in for J. Fidel. Today's show is fishing for good policy. We're going to be discussing the expansion of the proposed expansion of the Papahanao Mokua Ka'a monument up in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and today's guests we have Peter Apo. He's a trustee with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Makani Christensen, he's the owner of Ka'ape Adventures, and he is the executive director of the Hunting, Fishing, and Farming Association, and Senator Brickwood Gelderteria representing District 12, including Waikiki, Alamoana, Kaka'a Ako, Makali, and Moe Lee Lee. Welcome. Thank you for being here. Yeah, we're gonna be seven, to put it shortly, there were seven people who proposed the expansion of the Papahanao Mokua Ka'a monument and bring that graphic up. It shows right now it's an area that's about 50 miles wide. It's in the light pink area that you can see on the map. It's about 100 miles wide and about 1,200 miles long, and what they want to do is they want to expand it to 400 miles wide, and it'll probably end up being about 1,400 miles long, which is about the size of Oregon, Washington, and California combined. In fact, it would cover that entire area. I want to have talked to Peter about this. These seven Hawaiians wrote to President Obama to expand the monument, and there's a lot of people who are looking at it as an initiative from Native Hawaiians. Why would they do this when it seems like there's a lot of concern over the U.S. having taken Hawaii illegally, and yet now they want to give away this huge chunk of ocean? Exactly. I don't quite understand that reach the, first of all, I don't believe that the conservation concept is Hawaiian. The principle with marine conservation is the less humans, the better, and the less activity, the better. So it's about shutting out humanity. Now, I am a supporter of certain kinds of conservation issues, but Hawaiians never shut humans out completely. We had very strict rules. We were species specific as to what kapu was usually for a six-month period, and so it was a rotating. It was never shutting humans out of the environment because that was part of the food security. And during the kapu season to ease the burden on people, in case of a shortage, that's why we built fishponds. The fishponds were meant to offset the kapu season. So the idea of closing out humanity to, in this case, 580,000 square miles of Hawaiian ocean, and like you say, my calculation was it's the size of Texas and California and Montana are combined. And lastly, I don't want to take up all the conversation, it's the instrument by which this public policy would be enacted on the expansion. It simply requires the signature of the president on a declaration that comes under an act that was enacted in 1906 called the Antiquities Act. It does not require any vetting through the Congress, through the state, and especially no vetting required for the people who live in the impacted area. So I have a real problem with just the way a monument, particularly of this size, gets to. In other words, we have a resource that thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people depend on, and yet there's a small number of people who might dictate the policy of its access. They have and they can, yes. Makani, real quickly, let's see, you're the executive director of the Hunting, Farming and Fishing Association. How did that get started? Why did you start that up? You know, I saw commonalities between the different individuals that use the resources around the state, and I found that communication was an issue that because we're separated by islands, we weren't being able to communicate on the issues that happen at legislation. And a lot of times, farmers, fishermen and hunters would have to figure out that something was happening to their farm, the rules and regulations that came forth without them being aware of it. So what we did is we created the Hunting, Farming and Fishing Association and increased communication and just brought a big community together, I mean, from Hawaii Island to Kauai. So we've done a lot and it's paid off through legislative process this year. So the HFFA's primary focus is about food, right? It is. The motto is we feed Hawaii. That's correct. And with something like this expansion, how do you think it might affect the food supply? Food supply, for example, if a lot of us, like Poke, we like sashimi, prices will go up. People will lose jobs and in essence, we'll lose a food source and we'll basically give it up to foreign fleets who are not regulated to come into this area and sell it back to us at an increased price. I think I remember hearing somebody saying, was Baron Mijo at the United Fishing Agency saying that when that happens, it's almost like somebody stealing from you and selling it back to you. Yeah. Something like that. And you know, that's something that we should protect as far as Hawaii is concerned. It's a resource, you know, we take about 1.5% of the fish resources throughout the Pacific compared to all the foreign fleets. So it's not a big percentage and we're the most regulated industry in almost the entire world. We have a graphic that shows how much the U.S. actually takes from that resource. There's a chart and you can see on the right, the U.S. is actually Hawaii's fishing fleet. And it accounts for about 1.6% less than 2% of the total take-off big eye in the Pacific and you can see how much the other countries are taking. So when they're saying they want to put limits on what Hawaii is harvesting, does that help the resource realistically? No, what happens is it just allows foreign fleets to come in unregulated because you've got to figure how is the U.S. going to regulate the foreign fishers to come into an area the size of California, Oregon, and Washington. I mean, it's almost impossible unless you have a lot of funding behind it. We're just basically shooting ourselves in a foot. Senator Gallateria, what's the Senate's stance on this issue? You have kind of a pulse on that? Well, thank you for inviting me today. Certainly, I know what one senator's take is on it. I can share that with you, what my colleagues feel I'll reserve them the time to explain. But I think the title of this show is very telling, especially for me, fishing for good policy. As a policymaker, we're always trying to ensure the best for all parties as best as you can. So those seven friends, they're friends of ours, Peter and I, we know the gentleman who created and moved the initiative forward to the president's desk. There's a time limit on it, so there's some urgency going on on both sides, both proponents and opponents. I think from our perspective straight up, is it good policy? From a Native Hawaiian perspective, is this a Native Hawaiian issue? Because I think from the very get-go, the word Native Hawaiian and expansion don't go together. And to be clear, all three of you are Native Hawaiians. To be clear, and we all probably come from different places on that too, but from expansion is how we lost Hawaii. So we want to go back to the very source of it all and that kind of rubs some of us in the wrong way. So although I'm a proud American and a very proud Native Hawaiian and also involved in the new Native Hawaiian entity that we're raising, that will negotiate with the federal government one day, perhaps that's where we should start. Perhaps we should just back off a little bit and if there's any expansion to be done that affects cultural dynamics, not to mention economic dynamics, perhaps we should look at it that way. I'm all about Native Hawaiian prosperity and if this can help bring Native Hawaiian prosperity, then you got my attention. But it's simply expansionist policy. Now you're talking to a policymaker, right? Expansion. I'm not sure whether that's the best way to go. And I do know that one of my federal colleagues is also behind this and helping to push it forward. There's an up-and-coming conference that's going to be here in Hawaii that is a deadline, if you will, for a presidential action. So we're here in the midst of an interesting area where decisions have to be made. My next question is, once you've taken it away, when do you give it back? How do we as Native Hawaiians get in there, or not only Native Hawaiians, look at the fishing industry as an example. They're coming out strong against this, right? And it's for the economic reasons. We're coming, if some of us are against it, it's simply because there's too many questions unanswered. Culturally as well as economically. Well, when the monument was first established, it seems like constitutional patch rights might have been set aside. Is that correct, Peter? Well, no, it's not exactly. Well, they're set aside in that you have to have a permit now to go there. But let me give another perspective. There is already an existing monument that was put into place by George Bush in 2006. The existing monument pretty much takes care of all the concerns that were originally raised to justify monument states. It's a coastal fishery. It protected everything that needed. So the question is, in this expansion going from 180,000 square miles to 580,000 square miles, how do you justify that kind of expansion? Now you're leaving the coastal zone. You're leaving all those endangered areas of reef systems and birds and animal life. And you're moving into the benthic seas where only pelagic action happens, you know, fish that travel all over the world. So that's one of the existing monuments apparently is working fine. So justifying the expansion is really something that I cannot see. And then to have it done simply with the stroke of a President's pen without really much public vetting. Now I know they're going to have a couple of public hearings, but maybe three public hearings on an issue that is this important. It seems to me kind of insulting, I think, to the people of Hawaii. So it's very, very problematic and it really bothers me a lot. Oja had taken a vote on this issue and they decided to support the expansion. Why did that happen? That's my question. I am a dissenting trustee. There were two of us who did not support the expansion. Because as the senator pointed out, you know, we're in the midst of, we just came up with a constitution, you know, recently through a process called an aha, a gathering of Hawaiians. And at some point I fully expect that we will be engaging the federal government in some kind of a government-government, a negotiation relationship. Not that much different than Native American Indians have been able to take. So one of the things that would be on the table is submerged lands. So all this expansion area has to do with submerged lands and it will have to do with rights. And for Hawaiians to support just surrendering 580,000 square miles of submerged lands without a whimper is just, I don't get it. I'm sorry, hold that thought. We're going to take a little break and we'll be right back with ThinkTech. Hi, my name is Aaron Wills. You are watching ThinkTechHawaii.com. I am the host of the show Rehabilitation Coming Soon. You can watch us live at ThinkTechHawaii.com at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays. I will see you there. Aloha, I'm Kaui Lucas, host of Hawaii is my mainland every Friday here on ThinkTech Hawaii. I also have a blog of the same name at kauilukas.com where you can see all of my past shows. Join me this Friday and every Friday at 3 p.m. Aloha. Aloha, my name is Josh Green. I serve as Senator from the Big Island on the Kona side and I'm also an emergency room physician. My program here on ThinkTech is called Health Care in Hawaii. I'll have guests that should be interesting to you twice a month. We'll talk about issues that range from mental health care to drug addiction to our health care system and any challenges that we face here in Hawaii. We hope you'll join us. Again, thanks for supporting ThinkTech. Welcome back to ThinkTech. I'm Dean Sensui, sitting in for Jay Fidel. We're talking about the Papa Hanao Mokuakea Monument and today's show is Fishing for Good Policy. We have guest Peter Oppo, Makani Christensen, Senator Galliteria. Senator, you had something to say about the OHA support of this expansion. Well, yeah, OHA is a quasi-autonomous state agency, which means that some of their funding comes through the state pipeline. So that allows us to ask questions about why they would support something like this because it comes down to the support of the Native Hawaiian beneficiaries. So how does supporting an expansion of this nature support the Native Hawaiian dynamics and policies that they are in statute supposed to be doing? And I know that they've moved towards becoming a co-manager. Is it co-manager, Peter? The position is to be a co-manager of the... The proposal on the table now is for co-trustee. Co-trustee. But even that, the co-trustee doesn't make the rules if we're looking at the policy of it, too. The rules are made up on the federal level, so therefore we do not have say on how this thing is going to be run. Because that's what Governor Arioshi pointed out at the rally, that if we give this up and capitulate, then there's no guarantee that anybody will have access to it because the state... The president is only required to state a purpose for monument designation. He is not required to get into any of one of the rules, what happens, who's entitled, who's not entitled. All of that comes after the designation. Who would do that? I think it's on the federal level. Yeah, all on the federal level. Yeah, it's all on the federal level. So the state level, the home rule level has no say in this, except, of course, perhaps through OHA. And the state of Hawaii would be co-trustees, which means that if anything, they would be able to recommend things to the rule. I see. That's the troubling nature if there is in terms of policy making. Because once you've, you know, let it go, again, how do we get it back? I mean, I can understand, I can really understand our colleagues who are proponents of this thing. We have to give time for the, I guess, the fishing to propagate and to grow and that sort of thing. But I'm looking at it from the policy level. It's not making sense to me right now. Makani, you know, they're talking about the fish coming back and reproducing and, you know, increasing with exposure. You did a study on a core study with Westpac. Right, we did. We did a study basically in Mauna Loa Bay, which was a target area for closure through the humpback whale sanctuary. And we did a study basically taking a fishing core, a hot spot, where you'd go out and you'd catch fish. And basically we watched fish grow for about a year and a half. And we got it to the point where when we started it, it was the bloom from El Nino. So there's a massive, massive bloom throughout the entire state. And we got lucky enough to catch it at its infancy. And we basically watched fish grow within a year time period from a small size to basically harvestable size. Within a year and a half, you know, they're about a pound, pound and a half. I mean, really good size to consume and take home and eat. So and, you know, each time we went out, we probably saw about 5,000 fish, 6,000 fish, sometimes 10,000 fish all on one core. And that's one of the reasons why, you know, we came up with the concept of it was to bridge that gap between science and the fishermen who are out there who practice science almost on a daily basis. That was the study. Now with that kind of study, with that kind of fish and that kind of habitat, does that apply to Big Aituna? It's two different types of fish. So you've got pelagic and reef fish. So as far as Big Aituna, from what I understand from the research that's been done, you know, within two years, you know, you've got 130 pound fish, 140 pound fish, depends how much food they have and how much they eat. So they grow fast. And at the same time, you know, you want to make sure you catch a good size fish for market. So two different types of fish, but you have similarities between growth process. But it's not like a core where they're in a fixed position? No, they'll be in a tuna move throughout the Pacific. They'll follow the currents, they'll follow the temperatures. And they'll kind of gather at upwelling spots and they'll follow the bait, right? The bait will follow basically the plankton and all the small little critters out there. And the big fish will follow that. And that's determined by currents? Upwelling, currents, temperature, you know, all those things come into factor. And that's why fishermen will follow the fish throughout the Pacific. And good fishermen have their certain spots that they go to all the time. Other fishermen, they're searching because the fish swam and they have to find them. By the way, just so that everybody knows, you want to get Makani to talk about his qualifications. How do you know this stuff? You studied it at... Oh, so I went to the United States Naval Academy, studied oceanography while I was there. And I came home and basically got taken under the wing of a very, very good fisherman. And he taught me things that I would never know. In fact, most of the, a lot of the reasons why you see me up at legislation fighting bills is because what I see versus what is actually on the table proposed as legislation doesn't make sense. And a lot of it comes from years of observation. And being fortunate enough to learn about the fish movement, fish habits. So that's what I bring to the table. You have any idea how much fish comes through the auction on a daily basis? You know, it could vary. I mean, some days, what, 30,000 pounds, 1,000 pounds to 150,000 pounds. It varies on how many boats are in during that time. Sometimes there's only one boat, sometimes there's five, sometimes there's not. So that all depends. I was going to say, speaking of doesn't make sense, two things that really stand out. I'm assuming that the existing rules with the existing monument, you know, is going to be applied to the expansion monument. And so one of the existing rules is on the question of native rights is it allows Hawaiians to quote subsistence fish. But you have to eat the fish before you go home. Hello. You're going to have to do a lot of eating real fast. I would think so. Then the other thing, and this has to do with the expansion itself, what we're saying to US fishermen, because the no take zone would go all the way out to the furthest limits, the 200 mile limit of US jurisdiction. You're saying to a US fisherman that you can fish, but not in your country. That's the exclusive economics zone. That's where you're supposed to fish. All right, now. And then, you know, well, anyway. Funtless. If arguments can be made that there could be a balance, you know, between what is being asked, what is currently there, and it also, I'll go back to, if it's a native Hawaiian issue, then let's look at native Hawaiian prosperity as it works with fishermen like Makani. Can something that is taken from the expanded zone go back to help the native Hawaiians in Hawaii then as part of a reconciliation process, if you will. Because if this is an expansion, then it's essentially a grab. Yeah. Call it spade or spade. Can there be a balance? I mean, it seems like they're so polarized that nobody's meeting anybody in the middle. I think talking is required. It does have to be some polarization, you know, and I just remember what I want to say. You know, Hawaii imports 90% of our food. So we have a real food security issue. Most of the 10% of food that is produced here comes from fish, fresh fish that we get from our fishermen. And a large part of that comes from the long line fisheries, which fish out in, you know, the pelagic zone. Fish move, fish work in schools, they're like buffalo. So to say to a fisherman that you cannot go where the fish go, again, it doesn't make any sense. Somebody told me that, that ahi is like the Hawaiian equivalent of the buffalo, right? They depended on that for a lot of their food. And to shut that down or to curtail it is almost like the same strategy of what was done to the Native Americans with their buffalo. Yeah. Did you want to add something, Makane? The biggest thing is, you know, this comes down to a legacy project that benefits a couple guys. And really not thinking about the people of Hawaii. And when you forget about the people of Hawaii, we're already struggling. It's already hard enough to have three jobs just to pay rent. I mean, you know that the cost of living is just extreme. And for the federal government to come in at this time when we've all witnessed failure after failure after failure in Hawaii. Why are they doing this? And why would they make it harder for us to feed our families in Hawaii? Why would they threaten jobs if a policy doesn't make sense? That's what I wanted to add to that. Okay, we have a few minutes left. Peter, I want to talk about the ticking clock. There's a backstory to all this. On September 10th, Hawaii is going to play host to the World Conservation Congress. And part of this really seems like a clandestine, well, I don't know, maybe that's too strong a word, on the part of the Obama administration to help establish a legacy for the president, as George Bush did for himself when he declared the first monument. So, Ohio, in fact, had gifted the World Conservation Congress a half a million dollars for them to come here. I mean, we were one of the donors, there were others. But the ticking clock is, I think I can say that I am correct in saying that this monument scheme has been building for quite a few months without any input locally. At least, we trustees did not know about it until recently. And it was to time the announcement of this expanded monument, which would make it the largest marine conservation area in the world. To time it to the September 10th convening to give the president one an excuse to come to Hawaii to make the announcement there by establishing his legacy. Now, I say it's a backstory and, you know, people can deny it. But boy, it sure looks like that's what's happening because it's on a fast track. Senator, you just made it the front story. But I would say that I won't use clandestine, I won't use scheme. I will say that this is a unique opportunity for the conservation world to see what native Hawaiians do for conservation. And expanding in this way might not be what native Hawaiians do. I cannot say because I'm not a practicing fisherman. Nor am I an ancient, I mean, I'm a contemporary Hawaiian. But I do know that from a policy perspective, we need to ask more questions. Therefore, I think we should pull back a little bit. And even it will be a legacy for the president if we can make it work and we can get the right answers. Okay, Makani, you have a lesson. You know, it's this fishing for good policy. Let's make sure that all policy that comes out there is supported with facts. And the facts support any kind of laws that come out because it affects people. It affects all people. And we are all living on the island together. And we need to understand the different facets of feeding people. Well, that sounds really good. I think we're about done here. Thank you very much. Thank you, Peter and Makani and Senator for coming out. And I'd just like to say that this issue is something that's worth discussing. But thank you for coming and watching Think Tech. My name is Dean Sensui and we're clear.