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RO: Good morning, thank you for having me. Ryan Okano, State of Hawaii, Division of Aquatic
<br />Resources - a biologist in – stationed in our Hilo office in East Hawaii. I was asked to talk about
<br />coral restoration for our fisheries habitat project but I’ll kind of step back and, to kind of set the
<br />stage with coral restoration in general. It’s something that is – seems to be gaining a lot of
<br />momentum at the world or international level– it’s happening all over. The coral restoration
<br />efforts I’m most familiar with is the things I’ve seen happening in the United States’ jurisdictions,
<br />the corals in the Atlantic/Caribbean side with our sister jurisdictions being those like Puerto
<br />Rico, Florida and the U.S.B.I. – all U.S. areas, they have been suffering massive losses in coral, in
<br />the past few years, and the recent losses have been attributed to coral bleaching and coral
<br />disease. On the Pacific side, some of our sister jurisdictions they have also been suffering some
<br />losses with bleaching in the recent years, recent months. Hawaii has been lucky this past few
<br />seasons – our waters have been relatively cool – knock on wood and bleaching hasn’t hit us too
<br />bad. It’s been happening very bad throughout the other places. So, one of the tools that coral
<br />reef managers have been using to respond to these coral reef losses – coral losses – is coral
<br />restoration in the form of, growing coral, raising coral or planting coral, kinda like how you can
<br />restore a forest with trees or baby trees, kinda taking that approach and bringing it into the
<br />ocean. Due to all those massive coral losses on the Atlantic/Caribbean side, coral restoration in
<br />that area compared to the Pacific side is much more massive, much more advanced, has been
<br />going on a lot more things happening. So, on the Pacific side it’s relatively new, especially in
<br />Hawaii. There are a few coral restoration projects happening in the state, I think the majority I
<br />would say is on Oahu, some in West Hawaii – Kona side, there’s a few starting up. But the
<br />majority is on Oahu. So, because of all this interest and effort and, science happening, and the
<br />benefits of coral restoration that we have been learning, we at the State of Hawaii, Division of
<br />Aquatic Resources decided to initiate a planning effort for coral restoration. So, in this planning
<br />effort we identified three goals: the first one was coral restoration for bleaching – that goal has
<br />been completed or that section of the plan has been completed. Currently, we’re kind of
<br />wrapping up coral restoration for shoreline protection, and, this one was a very complicated for
<br />us because coral restoration for shoreline protection – that brings in a whole other suite of
<br />expertise needed, like when you talk about shoreline protection you want to kinda create that
<br />structure or thing that causes the waves to break so some of these things had to be kind of big –
<br />it all depends on how deep the water is and stuff like that but it requires some like artificial
<br />structures and such and once you start putting that kind of stuff down on the reef, then the
<br />engineering just goes – yeah – just gets crazy. So that plan, we’ve been struggling through it, but
<br />we have identified pukas or holes and knowledge gaps in trying to fill those to further that plan
<br />– coral restoration for shoreline protection. So that brings me to our third goal – and this is the
<br />goal that I have been asked to talk about today is, coral restoration for fisheries habitat. We at
<br />the Division of Aquatic Resources realize that there’s a lot of interest, effort, funds being
<br />diverted to coral restoration and we’re trying to figure out a way and leverage it on how we can
<br />use these resources to better the fisheries in the State of Hawaii. And so, this is what we kind of
<br />came up with. At the core of this plan is we’re trying to engage fishermen and, to be honest and
<br />transparent – improve the perception that fishermen have on our agency, to be frank. So we
<br />have been going out and soliciting input on this project, we have been talking to fishermen and,
<br />the types of questions we ask are like, the design of like – cause in our mind we’re thinking that,
<br />coral restoration for fisheries habitat is gonna involve some type of larger scale, habitat
<br />structures – more than just replenishing corals – so like getting at the base or the larger puka
<br />habitats in a coral reef – those big holes that can house schools of fish such as menpachi,
<br />aholehole and stuff like that. So, creating those holes or habitats usually involves artificial
<br />materials: concrete, the generic examples are reef walls and such, but I think the technology and
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