GMAC Feb 20 2024 Minutes Final Draft

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so we wanted to make sure that fishing was a major component and feeding our families was a major component of the vision. But, then, as things moved forward we were trying to interpret what it was that DAR was trying to do and as it turned out that the 30 x 30, which meant 30% of near shore waters to be managed within a marine managed area, we were starting to get concerns about what they were doing and as we dug in to it – it was more and more of these marine managed areas, we didn’t like it, ah, we started to oppose the initiative. So, they wanted to regulate pretty much everything from shoreline to 150-foot depth, all species would be on the table, all methods of regulation would be on the table, and we thought that it was rather intrusive. This is a map of Oahu, the purple area on the north and on the east is the National Marine Sanctuary, the grey area are areas managed by the federal government and the Department of Defense, and they have some jurisdiction over those areas. If you look at this map today, those green areas and red areas are marine managed areas, and, if you look at what they were proposing was addition of all of those orange lines across all of Oahu including those areas in the green circle that are already a “no-fishing” zone because the military restricts access to those areas. When we showed this to the general public, the public went nuts. They said, oh, my God, this is crazy, because what happens is – just as an example on Oahu – currently there’s 2 ½ miles of marine managed areas – they were proposing to go to about 50 miles – that was 47 miles of new areas that they were going to propose. We obviously said that, that was crazy – there’s no process – you’re not going to make it in 10 years and thus we opposed it. So, we wanted the whole process to be stopped. We went to the legislature – got the legislature to convene a hearing on the subject matter on December 8, 2022. And we made presentations – a number of fishers made presentations, Division of Aquatic Resource made presentations and as a result of that Dawn Chang, the chairperson rescinded Holomua 30 x 30 on January 20, 2023. She wrote a letter rescinding the initiative and ordering the Division of Aquatic Resources to completely revise the program. So, the current status pretty much taking all of 2023 – we’ve been working – not only us – but other fishers been working with the Division of Aquatic Resources and pushing for 4 items – island-wide community themes – focus away from regulatory management and take as long as it takes and move to more regional and island-wide management. That was adopted by the Division, and we are working toward implementing the four items that we had put on the table with them. So as of right now – a new Holomua road map is in draft to be published in the next couple of months. We are – we meaning HFAC – is working with the Division to create this new road map. On Maui DAR has convened what is called that “navigation theme” that’s an island-wide group of fishers representing as many of the communities across Maui and also representing different gear types: net fishing, rod and reel, boat fishing, limu gathering, traditional and customary methods and so forth and they’ve convened a team on the island that is starting to discuss how they’re going to look at a strategic plan for Maui. On Kauai HFAC convened a team of fishers, again, modeling after the Maui team, which is across all of the communities of Hawaii and all of the gear types that people use and they have been meeting and staring to put together a plan for Maui and inviting the divisions that attend their meetings. On the Big Island HFAC is 15