The health of fisheries is vital to the marine environment, economy, and culture of Hawaiʻi. Subsistence fishing also plays an outsized role in food security for many who live in the state. In a recent NOAA survey of non-commercial fishers, 36 percent reported that their catch was an “extremely or very important part of their regular diet.”

Given the range of pressures on fisheries, from habitat loss to overfishing, Hawaiʻi’s fisheries require well-informed management to ensure their sustainability for future generations. Yet, Hawaiʻi is the only coastal state that doesn’t require resident fishers to have a non-commercial marine fishing license.

Past efforts to introduce a licensing system have failed due to widespread resistance among fishers. Much of the resistance is simply that fishers don’t want to pay to fish because it has always been free. Others oppose a licensing system because of a range of concerns, including the lack of details on what such a system would entail, how it would be enforced, and how the state would spend the money generated from license fees. Another major concern is the impact of a license on Kānaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiians) traditional and customary rights.

So, given the arguments stacked against it, what are the strongest arguments in favor of a non-commercial marine fishing license in Hawaiʻi?

“Data. No doubt,” says Matt Ramsey, the director of Conservation International’s Hawaiʻi program and a 2021-2024 voting member of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council (WP Council).

“Managers need basic data to make good decisions. Right now, there is no basic understanding of how many fishers there are in Hawaiʻi, or any understanding of their activities. We don’t know how much fish are being pulled out of the water and where those fish go. For example, if a fisheries rule was created for a particular geography, we would have no way of knowing how many fishers would be impacted. Or if a fisher is catching fish to feed their family, we don’t know how that impacts them. Without good data, it’s impossible to understand how fisheries management impacts the social and economic drivers, as well as the environmental ones. Those are all big unknowns.”

Currently, fisheries managers use data reported from commercial fishing catch trends to inform rule creation and limits on the non-commercial catch of certain species statewide or in certain areas. Fisheries managers supplement the commercial data with surveys of non-commercial fishers, but according to Joshua DeMello, a fisheries analyst with the WP Council, the surveys are not targeted at the “universe” of non-commercial fishers.

“The fish in the sea is like having money in your bank account,” DeMello says. “We know how much we’re pulling out with commercial fishing. But we don’t know how much we are taking from non-commercial fishing. It’s like writing checks without knowing how much we have left in the account.”

DeMello says a registry or license system could give fisheries managers the basis for conducting targeted surveys and focus groups that would generate needed data. He says managers are “still just really guessing” without knowing how many people are fishing, what they are catching, and how many fish they are taking.

A 2016 study by a group of experts co-convened by Conservation International and the WP Council looked at the options for, and feasibility of, developing a range of systems, from free registries to fee-based permit or licensing systems. The study concluded that the state legislature would have to give the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) additional legal authority to issue non-commercial marine fishing licenses and to adopt rules specific to how such a license would work. Creating that support within the legislature would require public support; however, many fishing groups and even the general public are distrustful of the ability of DLNR to manage a licensing system effectively.

Darrell Tanaka, a lifelong pole and spearfisher from the community of Haiku on the north shore of Maui, counts himself among those skeptical of the potential effectiveness of a licensing system to benefit fishers, mostly because he doesn’t believe enforcement of existing fishing regulations has been sufficient.

“Every fisherman that does things the right way and fishes legally wants more enforcement,” Tanaka says. “And recently the state has made some progress on enforcement, but there is a lot of distrust because of the past behavior of some enforcement officers.”

Tanaka says that stopping poaching in marine protected areas would go a long way to increasing trust and support for a non-commercial license system among many fishing groups.

“Our reserves are poached so frequently there’s hardly any fish in them,” Tanaka says. “Right now, the reserves are pretty much a private fishing area for poachers. If you can’t defend a marine reserve, how can you defend all our reefs and manage a fishing license?”

Tanaka and others acknowledge that how DLNR manages the new marine fishing license for visitors to Hawaiʻi (effective in early 2024 and costing between $20 and $70 depending on the length of the license) could increase confidence among fishers and the public that DLNR is up to the task of managing a larger license system for Hawaiʻi residents.

Another issue that complicates the creation of any licensing system is Native Hawaiian traditional and customary rights. In other coastal states, the state management agency typically issues free special licenses to a Tribal authority that then determines how to distribute the licenses to registered tribal members. Native Hawaiians, however, don’t have a comparable Tribal registry or Tribal authority, so questions of determining eligibility for a special license will be more complicated. The 2016 Conservation International study suggested that in any licensing system, DLNR would have the authority to determine license eligibility and cost, and the qualifications for exemptions, fee waivers, or free special licenses. So far, Native Hawaiians who do not live in the state are not exempt from purchasing the non-commercial fishing license for visitors.

Kevin Chang is the executive director of Kuaʻāina Ulu ʻAuamo (KUA), a nonprofit organization that supports networks of rural and Native Hawaiian community-based natural resource management organizations and initiatives. Chang says many in KUA’s networks recognize the need to increase knowledge of the impact of non-commercial fishing on marine resources, but also says we should ensure that any licensing program supports fisheries management in ways that support healthy ecosystems and that perpetuate and uphold Native Hawaiian communities’ subsistence gathering rights.

“We have a constitution that says the state must protect Native Hawaiian gathering rights,” Chang says. “If a license is created, it would be helpful if it was administered in a way to collect data that could inform and support community-based or locally grounded fisheries management.”

Education is an oft-cited benefit of a registry or licensing system, providing points of contact for regulatory agencies to communicate directly with non-commercial fishers and increase compliance with bag limits, area restrictions, and other regulations. Some fishers, including Darrell Tanaka, would even support requiring applicants to download a regulatory handbook and take a simple test on basic rules and regulations to increase compliance.

Matt Ramsey agrees that education could be a crucial part of any licensing system, but he says there are many options for how a licensing or registry system could be set up, given the needs for management and potential benefits to the public and fishing groups.

“Everybody comes in with their own presumptions of what a fishing license should be and how it should be set up,” Matt Ramsey says. “But the end destination is agreed upon: people want healthier fisheries. They want to catch more fish. They want to see management well-funded. They want the bad guys busted and the good guys left alone. All of those are universals that everyone wants, but it’s the details that get in the way.”

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