STAND. COM. REP. NO. 935

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    H.B. No. 850

       H.D. 1

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2011

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Water, Land, and Housing, to which was referred H.B. No. 850, H.D. 1, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO FISHING,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to implement a community-based fishery resource management area program for the island of Lanai.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc.; Sierra Club, Hawaii Chapter; Lanai Hunters Advisory; Janice Palma-Glennie; George Purdy; Mele Davis; Max Renigado; Ken Esclito; and H. Mei Lani Aki.  Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources and Carl Jellings, Sr.

 

     Your Committee finds that resource management is site specific.  Natural resource management practices that encompass traditional Hawaiian fishing practices must be adapted to the local environments and applied with a local understanding of the environmental and ecological conditions affecting the natural resources.

 

     The Lanai community, in particular, has voiced concerns about the impacts of overfishing, invasive species, and the impact of marine cage aquaculture on its subsistence lifestyle.  This measure recognizes that the residents of Lanai are in the best position to understand the yields, cycles, and patterns of their fisheries, and takes advantage of that historical knowledge by implementing a community-based fishery resource management area program.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Changing the membership criteria for the Lanai Community-based Fishery Resource Management Area Advisory Committee and the mandate for the Committee to focus on fishing cultural practices that emphasize sustaining the fishery;

 

     (2)  Deleting the reference to "konohiki" on page 4, line 15 to avoid confusion with section 187A-23, Hawaii Revised Statutes, which governs konohiki fisheries;

 

     (3)  Requiring the plan that establishes the management framework for fishery resources to be based on best available information, regardless of whether that information is based on personal observation of and adjustments or responses to environmental changes, or otherwise;

 

     (4)  Requiring the Advisory Committee to establish a community-based fishery resource management area system that, among other things, can respond quickly to environmental changes and changes in the fishery stock;

 

     (5)  Providing that the rules proposed by the Advisory Committee and adopted pursuant to chapter 91, Hawaii Revised Statutes, shall be incorporated as the fishery management structure for the island of Lanai upon the implementation of the aha kiole or aha moku system;

 

     (6)  Changing the effective date to July 1, 2011; and

 

     (7)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Water, Land, and Housing that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 850, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 850, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Water, Land, and Housing,

 

 

 

____________________________

DONOVAN M. DELA CRUZ, Chair