 ThinkTek Hawaii. Civil engagement lives here. And good afternoon. My name is Sherry Broder and I'm an attorney in Honolulu and I also teach international law, international environmental law, international human rights at the William S. Richardson School of Law. I'm very pleased to be here today at ThinkTek Hawaii and I'm here with my dear friend and professional colleague, Professor Anastasia Teliteski. And she and I are working on a project together. Welcome. Thank you. Anastasia. Thank you. I want to just give us a little background on Professor Teliteski because she has a very impressive background and she's accomplished a lot in just a few short years. She also graduated from the University of California at Berkeley like I did one of her mentors was also one of my great friends and someone that I looked up to very much, Professor David Karen. She's also worked with Professor Harry Scheiber who is also a dear friend and a giant in the field of international ocean law. She is now, she usually teaches at the University of Idaho Law School and she has a special position this year at the University of Oakland Law School where she is teaching and she's had the opportunity while she's there to find out more about Maori practices which is going to help her on the project we're working on together. Okay, I don't want you to think that she's, you know, that she and I just have all exactly the same friends but we actually have a lot of dear colleagues and friends in common and she's working on a book right now with another friend, dear friend of mine, Professor Van Nanda from the University of Colorado, the University of Denver Law School. Well, welcome today. Thank you. And, you know, you contacted me to work on this really fascinating project on near shore fisheries and I think when you first contacted me, you know, my heart sank because I thought, wait till she finds out what the status of the fisheries are in Hawaii and the near shore. I hope we can find some fish when we go to work on this project but she reassured me that she was well aware that there were problems in the near shore fisheries and we were going to look at sustainable practices in the near shore fisheries. So how did this idea come about to do this project? So I've been really interested because I've done a little bit of work on the right to food and the right to food, of course, is a human right and there has been a set of guidelines put into effect for the progressive realization of the right to food and one of the big conversations is how do you satisfy the right to food and there are multiple ways. You know, one of the ways is, of course, subsistence, you know, being able to get your own food and when you look particularly at fisheries and this is what's really fascinating is 90% of the fishing in terms of people who are fishers are subsistence fishermen. That's just in the near shore. That's in the near shore. That's exactly right. There are people around the world in various continents who are fishing their major protein source just one mile, two miles, three miles offshore, you know, in small vessels or possibly even just, you know, casting off of the beach and so one of the things I've been really interested in is because we have seen depletion, depletion of fishery resources. There's a lot of different drivers over fishing, people taking too much, increasing population. Pollution, the issues with warming oceans. I mean, all of these are compounding and we're seeing sort of declines in the near shore fisheries. And so one of the questions, which is the question of our project is how do you turn around what is at this point a somewhat negative trend, you know? So when you say, you mentioned a number of different things, but you know, how, why is it that we see a decline in fisheries when we're looking at, you know, things such as pollution, climate change, warming oceans? Sure. How does that, is that more of a contributor than overfishing? What's the real source of the problem here? Well, it depends on the place. It depends on the place, but it's a great point. Fish can adapt, but it often takes time for the adaptation. But what we're seeing is everything happening, this kind of rapid acceleration. So in terms of just how quickly the oceans are warming, you know, the acidification processes, we're seeing how quickly the amount of pollution, the amount of, you know, coastal development that's happening around the world. Today, you know, a tremendous amount of the population lives in cities. Where are a lot of these cities built? They're built in the coastal zones, you know? When we look, you know, at various countries, major cities, in many cases, millions of people are living in coastal zones. Sometimes the waste that is produced, you know, some of it is treated, some of it's not treated. And so these are impacting what were previously, you know, the sort of the riches of the ocean, you know, when you look at sort of historical documents and you see just how many resources there were. And today, you know, the amount of effort that goes into catching has been increasing. So fishermen and fisherwomen spend a lot more time out at sea trying to catch, you know, the same amount that, you know, would have taken half the time. And probably smaller. And often smaller. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, how does the concept of sustainability mean to the idea of fishing in the near shore? Why did you decide on the term sustainability instead of maybe, you know, good practices or something like that? Well, sustainability is a question of making sure that there is for future generations. You know, there's enough for this generation, but there's abundance for future generations. And so the question is how do you do that? How do you manage for that? Well, we know that we have obviously, in some countries, we have regulatory systems that are in place. But the biggest challenge with anyone's regulatory system is the enforcement. If you're not enforcing the laws, then you're not achieving the objectives of those laws. And so sustainability, the components, when you talk about sustainability, you're not just talking about environmental outcomes or economic outcomes. You've also talked about that social outcome. And I think that's where this project is trying to think a little bit further about what is best practices for a community, a community that's committed to ensuring that they have good resources available, you know? So like just the United Nations developed model rules for communities to follow and, you know, can it be a one-size-fits-all kind of program? It's a good question, because the Food and Agriculture Organization has been giving a lot of attention particularly about the fishermen who are using food for their main source of subsistence. And so they have set out a set of guidelines that are directed at governments, but they're also directed at commercial fishers, as well as the subsistence fishers themselves, trying to think how do we improve conduct? How do we do what fishermen have obviously been doing for centuries, and that's why we still have fish in the sea, not taking more than they need, you know, not damaging the habitat that the fish rely upon, you know, for spawning areas. I mean, we have tremendous amounts of practices over the millennia of protection, you know? And we've lost some of that connection, and a lot of that is because many people who are consuming today, they don't catch their own food, you know? They don't hunt their own food, they don't catch their own food, they don't garden. They don't have that connection to either the land or the ocean. And so there are communities that this is still very much alive. Many indigenous groups are still subsistence groups, still have reliance on these resources. They protect them often through informal mechanisms, but effective mechanisms. But one of the big challenges, and this is a challenge faced by Hawaii, is that we see a lot of groups that have interest in using a resource, but in using the resource the way they'd like to use the resource, we end up with conflicts. And so that's one of the questions, is how can you build a management system that's robust and that protects the resources, honors people's interests in the resource, and ultimately leaves something for future generations, and not just leaves something. I think that's an incorrect term. Leave something that's abundant, you know, use the resource in as good a condition, if not better, preferably better, given the pressures we've already seen. So why did you pick Hawaii? Well, Hawaii is very similar in many cases, because I'm currently at the University of Auckland, and so one of the really interesting things that we've been seeing in New Zealand is some of the Maori fishing management techniques are very much about producing abundance for subsistence use. And here in Hawaii with the legislation from 1994 that is now being realized with the Hiena community-based subsistence fishing area, and the work being done in Malakai now to work towards creating a similar area that is protective of the resources while also honoring people's interest in the resource. So really building a socio-ecological system, because just plain-putting regulations, you know, as I said, you can have all the regulations you want, but you're not going to have compliance. Well, what about things like runoff? You know, in Malakai they have a terrible problem with runoff, soil runoff, because, you know, the island was denuded in order to grow pineapples, cattle. There's still quite a bit of cattle branching still going on Malakai. So those things, and now, you know, there's seed corn being grown. So there's very, you know, a lot of the original forests are gone. People used to say that Malakai was a breadbasket of white, but that's not true anymore. So all of that ends up in a lot of runoff. Is that something that really affects the fishing grounds? Oh, absolutely. There's no question. I mean, when you add sediment to the water, particularly, it depends on a lot of near shore fisheries if you're working particularly on a fringing reef, you'll smother the coral, you know, coral or living organisms, you know, and that sedimentation process. And so it is really key. I mean, this is the coastal zone management, that integrated management, is that it's not enough simply to tend to the waters. You really do have to look at what the impacts are, you know, from the land to the water. And so in many cases, you know, one might even want to start, you know, giving attention to what's happening on the land because it wouldn't matter what you do in the water. You're not going to see improvements over time. So the investments need to be made, you know, and those are questions about, you know, securing if it's erosion, securing the land from additional erosion. If you have chemicals in the land, cleaning up some of those sites, you know, that are leaching into the waters. Well, we've talked to quite a few people who are really very passionate about Hawaii and trying to make improvements here. Absolutely. And so we, you know, we've talked to some people about all the work that's being done on the fish ponds. Yes. We've talked to people about Moana Lua Bay, which is a little different, I think, than kind of the basic subsistence that we were looking at in places like Haina and Molokai. So what's the difference between the fish pond scenarios and the project that we're working on? Why did you... Look, what is the interest that's beyond just the restoration of the near shore waters and repopulation of fish? Well, the question is the habitat. It's also how do you revive some of the loss of habitat, you know, because that's the connection with if you're having a lot of land-based pollution, you're damaging habitat. If you're having a lot of climate drivers, you're damaging habitat. And the question then is, what can the community do? And this is not just in the waters, but on land, you know, to be able to begin to address these issues, to begin to invest, make long-term investments, you know. And it's very clear that none of these things are sort of simple fixes. But once you have a committed community that is involved in the project, has ownership of this project, why would they have ownership? Because they can see the difference over time. So that's what's quite remarkable with restoration efforts, you know. So we're going to take a short break now to hear from some others, and we'll be back in just a couple of minutes. Aloha, my name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea is on Think Tech Hawaii every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join me, where my guests talk about law topics and ideas and music in Hawaii, Anna, all across the sea from Hawaii and back again. Aloha. Aloha, I am Howard Wigg. I am the proud host of Cold Green for Think Tech Hawaii. I appear every other Monday at three, and I have really, really exciting guests on the exciting topic of energy efficiency. Hope to see you there. Aloha, and welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii. I'm here with a brilliant professor, Anastasia Teliteski, who is not only brilliant but a passionate supporter of the environment and person with great interest and commitment to making our oceans a better place. So, back to what we were talking about, I, you know, it seems that you are very interested in the community, the relationship of the community to the near shore. And, you know, why have you focused your attention on the community? What do you see involving the community, paying attention to the community? How can that make a difference? Well, communities are place-based, and that's what's really key here, is because if you want to see a difference in a place, you want to talk to the people who have pride of place, you know, who live in the place and want to see the best for the place. And so, that makes a huge difference, you know. If you're going to be doing something from simply a top-down regulatory perspective, you're not going to necessarily see it be implemented. And so, the, if you're operationalizing something, it's happening at a community level. And so, not much my interest, you know, at someone who's done, you know, ocean, international ocean law is at a very sort of ethereal level, you know, where we talk about all of these commitments that states are making. But ultimately, it's not the states doing the work. You know, it's not people sitting in Washington D.C. doing the work, you know, even though that's where the Department of State is. It is people in their local communities, you know, who need the empowerment and the capacity and the authority. And so, that's the reason I actually think if you're looking at doing restoration of fish stocks, you need to look at it from a place-based approach, you know. So what do you envision and what have you actually seen that communities do when they see that their fish stocks are being severely depleted? They will often organize around this, you know. This is something I've formerly worked in the Philippines and we've seen some really effective groups that have... They've organized themselves, often with a community leader, someone who's passionate and committed, and then figured out what kind of management plan can they put into place that the community members themselves are willing to sort of commit to. And that's a really key aspect because one of the challenges I see moving forward in the community-based subsistence fishing areas here is low levels, potentially low levels of enforcement. Because they're simply or not, there are only certain individuals, you know, great officers who have that authority. And I do, from our meetings, we met with people who explained to us the fabulous program with Makai Watch, a fantastic program. So what is that? What is Makai Watch? It's a program with volunteers who are the eyes and ears of the community who then alert the authorities when they learn of something that may be, for example, a natural resource violation, which is fantastic to have. That's the power of the community. But the question then becomes whether they will be able to be... Will the compliance officers be able to respond in a timely fashion, you know? Well, we're very lucky in Hawaii because we have an environmental court. So people are found to have violated the law. Well, first of all, it was downgraded as offenses to a citation. So it doesn't become a whole big court hearing to get a lot of resources. I mean, depending on what's been done, you know, if a monk's seal's been attacked or something, then that's a much bigger case. But, yeah, so we have a court ready, willing and able to hear these cases. Great for criminal cases, sure. Yeah, so I think that's, you know, a good setup on the legal. And when we were meeting with the state officials, they were talking about possibly having an app on your smartphone where you could make reporting. What do you think of that idea? I think they said they have this app and that they're beginning to develop an even additional app to assist with the management, which I think is really, really important to have that available so that the community themselves... The challenge will be how responsive the state is because if there is community members making reports on, you know, various potential violations, is there an effective response? You know, because without an effective response, you don't have deterrence. Yes. And without deterrence, then the regulations. And because that's what's really key because when you have the community in these areas setting for themselves a set of regulations that they believe is going to be protective of the needs of the larger community to be able to access those resources as well as protecting the resource itself without the enforcement component. And what interests me is I know there are models that there are communities that have are authorized to be able to do confiscation, for example, of nets or lines or traps that are being used illegally. That seems to me... I can understand why it can be problematic on one level, but at the other side, it really is an effective tool if you have citizen deputies. And I wonder if that would be a model that would be appropriate here in terms of ensuring good enforcement of community management plans. Now that you've had the opportunity to meet with several people here and find out a lot about how things are handled here and what the ideas are and what the actual practices are, how do you feel that compares to what you've learned about New Zealand and how they handle things? In New Zealand, there are honorary fisheries officers and they are people who are well respected in the community. Their number one job is to do education. So you'll see them regularly out at various popular fishing spots. They are uniformed. So they are trained by the Ministry of Primary Industries and they also are responsible for collecting evidence in the case of a violation to be able to report on that. And I think it's an effective model. It definitely changes fishing behavior in areas where they're active. And it's key because they are well respected individuals. So do they have reserves or community gas management areas in New Zealand? I do. Do they rely specifically on Maori principles or do they use a more general set of principles? And in these areas, can other people fish or is it set aside specifically for the Maori? So they have an area that is specifically, something called a matai tai, that is available for the Maori to be able to collect for their own subsistence uses as well as for uses for community events. And this is done with leadership from the local iwi. They manage this using a sort of a committee that will be looking to collect information about monitoring. So they're very keen to be able to monitor to ensure that there's proper enforcement in terms of collecting the items that are often very popular are paoa, which is abalone, and kura, which is a form of rock lobster. Those are often sort of very valuable items for a feast and ensuring that they're not being over collected. I mean, there are issues. There are issues with people collecting, not using improper gear. You're not to collect abalone using scuba, for example. But there are people who do so. And that's where you end up with an enforcement issue. Okay, well, I'm going to, sadly, have to draw our discussion to a close. And just want to thank you so much, Mahalo Nui Loa, for coming here and sharing your expertise and for taking a great interest in what we're doing here in Hawaii and trying to work with the community here of scholars, scientists, lawyers, policymakers to see how we can improve and do more for our precious near shore resources. Thank you. Thanks for having me on the show.