The Hawaii Audubon Society received grants from the Homeland Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to support the collaborative marine conservation education and policy effort begun in 1998. Considerable progress was made on the project's objectives in Hawai`i and the Central and Western Pacific in 2003.

Marine Reserves in State and Federal Waters in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

At the federal level PFC members on the NWHI Coral Reef Reserve Advisory Council (RAC) helped complete a draft Reserve Operations Plan and began work towards establishing a NWHI National Marine Sanctuary. PFC members Linda Paul, William Aila, and Rick Gaffney are members of the RAC and Linda and William were elected officers in 2003. A Science Workshop was held in May 2003 to determine research priorities for the NWHI Reserve and future Sanctuary. L Paul was on the Science Workshop Steering Committee. The RAC is currently working on draft goals, management principles and objectives as well as fishing and zoning alternatives for the NWHI. Meanwhile, the proposed rules for a refuge in state waters in the NWHI were redrafted and scheduled to go out for another round of public hearings in 2004. The PFC has been working since 1999 to get state waters in the NWHI set aside as a marine reserve. Upon hearing that the draft rules would still permit fishing around the island of Nehoa, the PFC decided that we needed to try again to get protection for this area established by the legislature and a bill was drafted for introduction in the 2004 legislative session. The PFC is also working on getting the NWHI designated as a World Heritage Site. Our report has been completed and work on the application is proceeding.

Restoration of Coral Reef Fish Populations in the Main Hawaiian Islands

In 2003 the PFC continued its efforts to get a permanent statewide ban on lay gillnets banned from inshore waters. Lay gillnets have decimated reef fish populations around the main Hawaiian Islands and account for about 50% of the inshore green turtle take. Following the first round of public meetings held by the state in 2002 where a complete ban was not presented as an option, the PFC joined forces with people from Hawai`i Fishing News, the University of Hawai`i and the community to form SHORE (Save Hawai`i's Ocean Resources & Environment). Ellyn created a bus poster and articles were published in the Honolulu Advertiser, the Honolulu Weekly, Hawai`i Fishing News and `Elepaio. A meeting with the Chair of DLNR resulted in a second round of public meetings in 2003 and early 2004 with a complete ban added as an alternative. The PFC placed a half page ad in the paper to advertise these meetings and educate the public on the destructiveness of this fishing method. A lay gillnet rule must now be drafted and public hearings held. We are working on a PSA to educate the public in preparation for the hearings.

Since 1999 the Hawaii Audubon Society has sponsored state aquatics conferences every two years in Kane`ohe, in Wai`anae in 2001, and on Maui in 2003, which have been made possible with grants from the Hawai`i Community Foundation. Each time the goal of the conference has been to continue exploring how aquatics resource management based on the traditional Hawaiian management approaches can be meshed with western- style management methods to restore and sustainably manage Hawai`i's aquatic resources. It has been conclusively demonstrated that effective implementation of traditional fishing practices can maintain the same breeding stock as fully protected marine reserves. At the 2003 Aquatics Conference Dr. Angel Alcala spoke about how communities in the Philippines had restored local fish populations by setting up marine reserves in their areas. Conference participants concluded that the best way to mesh traditional Hawaiian and western management methods is through a community-based marine co-management program. Following the conference we took Dr. Alcala on a speaking tour to the islands of Hawai`i, Kaua`i, and O`ahu. A bill will be introduced in the 2004 legislature that sets up a framework of support for communities that are ready to take active stewardship roles in the management of their coastal areas.

We continued to distribute the PFC booklet "The Importance of Refuges for Reef Fish Replenishment in Hawai`i" to communities in Hawai`i and around the Pacific. We video taped two sessions on marine reserves with Dr. Callum Roberts for broadcasting on `Olelo community television, and video taped Dr. Joeli Veitayaki and others on their work with the locally managed marine areas in Fiji. The video tapes, along with other footage, is being compiled in a marine reserve network educational video. Other educational efforts included producing a marine reserves bus poster, a four-color marine reserves poster, a revised Fun Fish Facts kids' brochure and a comprehensive briefing booklet on marine reserves, lay gillnets, the aquarium trade, etc. to distribute to the media as well as the legislature. PFC articles on fish replenishment areas were published in the Honolulu Weekly and Hawai`i Fishing News.

Ellyn Tong, PFC Outreach Coordinator, gave presentations on the status of coral reef management policy development in Hawai`i at the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force (USCRTF) in Washington, D. C. in February 2003 and in Saipan and Guam in October 2003, where she also gave some presentations at schools and distributed our educational materials. L Paul served on the 2003 USCRTF Hawai`i Coral Reef Fisheries Management Workshop planning committee and is a member of the Seafood WATCH Hawai`i Working Group. In November 2003 we published the proceedings of the 2001 AFS Symposium, the Status of Hawai`i's Coastal Fisheries in the New Millennium and distributed them at the USCRTF Workshop.

The Aquarium Trade

Large numbers of marine aquarium fish and invertebrates are exported from Hawai`i to collectors on the U.S. mainland and in Europe. Exporters report about 430,000 reef fish leave Hawai`i for the aquarium trade, but field biologists estimate that this is only 20% of what is actually being harvested and exported. PFC staff, at DAR request, drafted inspection rules that will set up a monitoring program at the Kailua-Kona and Honolulu airports to determine actual exports.

In order to implement the rules, however, additional statutory authority is needed and a bill has been drafted that will be introduced in the 2004 legislative session. To help this effort the PFC worked to get seahorses listed on Appendix II of CITES at the last conference of the parties in November 2002. As a result of the listing of all 32 seahorse species, the U.S. and Hawai`i, which exports seahorses, will now have to implement an aquarium trade export certification and monitoring program.

To sensitize home aquarium enthusiasts regarding the damage their hobby is doing to marine ecosystems in Hawai`i, we are working on a consumer awareness campaign. A PFC white paper on the aquarium trade is posted on our website and is included in the PFC media briefing book, an article was published in `Elepaio, fact sheets in English, French and Spanish were distributed to CITES delegates at COP12 support the listing in Appendix II of aquarium trade species (seahorses), presentations on the aquarium trade were given at the Third State Aquatics Conference, a comprehensive, color illustrated PFC report on the Marine Aquarium Trade in the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific Region has been published, our aquarium trade video is nearing completion, and our aquarium trade awareness poster will be mailed all over the United States.

Intentional and Unintentional Introductions of Non-native Aquatic Species in Hawai`i

The PFC has been working since 1998 to prevent intentional and unintentional introductions of invasive alien aquatic species into Hawai`i. L. Paul is a member of the Alien Aquatic Organism Task Force on Unintentional Introductions, which completed the ballast water draft rules and is now working on the hull fouling rules. The Task Force is an outgrowth of 1999 legislation that PFC members helped to get passed. In 2003 we focused on intentional introductions. Kim Moffie, as a member of the state's Alien Aquatic Nuisance Steering Committee, drafted the legal section of the Hawai`i Aquatic Invasive Species Management Plan. In addition alien aquatic species resolutions (HR 123, SR 115) passed both the House and Senate that requested DOA and DLNR to develop a joint procedure whereby no potentially invasive alien aquatic species can be imported into the State without approval of both departments. Their reports are due in 2004. Educational efforts include presentations at the Third State Aquatics Conference in 2003 and a PFC report on the alien aquatic species problem in Hawai`i, which can be found on our website, pacfish.org.

Other Fish Conservation Activities

The Preparatory Committee met in Fiji and the Cook Islands in 2003 and continued to work towards the implementation of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Convention, which will come into force in 2004. L. Paul is on the U.S. delegation participating in these meetings. Before each meeting, in a non transparent process, the draft rules have been amended by the Interim Secretariat in a way that would make NGO participation in the deliberations of the future Commission and its subsidiary bodies difficult if not impossible, despite the transparency provisions of Article 21 of the Convention. Each time we have been able to get the Committee to modify the changes, which then pop up again in their old form at the next meeting. By Fall of 2003 this problem appeared to have been resolved; however, other conservation issues that are only beginning to be addressed include overcapacity, IUU fishing and bycatch.

PFC members continue to monitor the Western Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Council and its committees. L. Paul, as a member of the national Marine Fish Conservation Network (MFCN) Advisory Board, also worked on preventing the Sustainable Fisheries Act from being gutted from the Magnuson-Stevens Act and the implementation of some of the Pew Commission recommendations. L. Paul and K. Moffie attended the Regional Marine Conservation Advocacy meeting in April 2003 in Washington D.C. and gave a status report on pelagic fishing in the Central and Western Pacific. PFC members attended the MFCN annual meetings in DC in June 2003 and visited members of Congress.