The Hawaii Longline Association called commercial fishing in the vast and deep waters around the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument “sustainable and highly monitored” a day after President Donald Trump lifted a ban imposed by former President Barack Obama.
Trump’s executive order on Thursday was quickly condemned by environmental groups, Earthjustice’s Mid-Pacific Office and U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz.
But Eric Kingma, executive director of the Hawaii Longline Association, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Friday, “You can have both ocean protection as well as allowing sustainable fisheries to occur. They can be compatible.”
It’s uncertain when Hawaii’s fleet of 150 longline ships will be allowed into the monument, Kingma said.
“Nobody really knows,” he said. “The executive order has to go through some rule-making.”
But Kingma urged people not to let politics influence their opinions of what lifting the ban means — and what it does not.
“For people that are anti-Trump,” Kingma said, “don’t let that cloud the issues. … We’re not overfishing. We’re highly monitored. We’re Hawaii fishermen fishing in U.S. waters amongst ourselves. That should be a good thing. It’s called an Exclusive Economic Zone for a reason. It’s about allowing our fleet to fish away from foreign fleets.”
While down from pre-COVID-19 levels, Hawaii’s longline fishing industry ripples throughout Hawaii’s economy, Kingma said.
It supports 10,000 jobs and results in an overall economic impact of $800 million to $900 million that begins with a “dockside value” that Kingma said reached a low of $110 million in 2024.
The industry has yet to reach its 2021 revenue of $120 million, Kingma said.
“The last three years were the least profitable in the history of the operation,” he said. “The last two years were awful, and last year was terrible.”
Kingma said, “People have a misconception that most of our catch goes to the mainland. But 70% to 80% of our catch stays in Hawaii, where we eat two to three times the national average of seafood, per capita.”
There are no economic projections on the financial benefits of what lifting the ban will mean for Hawaii’s longline fleet, Kingma said, but Hawaii boats won’t have to sail into waters where they face foreign competition.
Enforcement of the ban on foreign-flagged ships in the monument would be up to the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s law enforcement unit.
Kingma worries about what Trump administration cuts to NOAA will mean for enforcement.
But he emphasized that Hawaii fishermen will be prepared to report any intrusions by foreign vessels.
Studies differ on the effects of the ban so far, and Kingma said media reports on the issue frequently offer misleading images of coral reefs and colorful, abundant reef fish when longline fishermen actually fish for migratory species far from shore.
“We’re not dragging nets on corals,” he said. “That area’s protected. The realistic picture is we’re fishing in all blue water, and it’s thousands of feet deep, with no corals there. This doesn’t open up seabed mining or anything destructive.”
President George W. Bush established the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument and the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument in 2008, making them the third- and fifth-largest protected areas in the world, respectively, according to research on the effects of the commercial fishing ban published in the online journal Nature Communications by five researchers — including two from the University of Hawaii.
What’s now known as the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument covers approximately 490,000 square miles of open ocean, coral reef and island habitats, making it nearly five times the size of all the U.S. national parks combined and nearly twice the size of Texas, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
It includes seven national wildlife refuges: Howland, Baker and Jarvis islands; Johnston, Wake and Palmyra atolls; and Kingman Reef.
In 2014, Obama banned commercial fishing in the monument.
Then, in 2016, he used the Antiquities Act to expand the monument from zero to 50 miles out to 200 miles to create the world’s largest marine protected area.
In 2020 then-President Biden began the process “to prohibit commercial fishing in the remaining open areas around Palmyra and Howland/Baker Islands,” according to the Longline Association. “The action was not completed by the end of President Biden’s term.”
Trump on Thursday then issued his executive order in an Oval Office ceremony that was cheered by Kitty Simonds, executive director of the Honolulu-based Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, and American Samoa U.S. House Delegate Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen.
American Samoa produces canned tuna, and Hawaii’s longline fleet brings in swordfish and sashimi-grade tuna, Simonds told Trump.
Simonds did not respond to a request for comment from the Star-Advertiser on Friday.
The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council late Friday did announce statewide meetings beginning this month about the unspecified “future of Hawai‘i’s fisheries.”
