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the coral fishing or diving? That – what you said – shoreline protection – my first thought they’re
<br />gonna start closing the access to the fishermen, and the swimmers and the scuba divers.
<br />
<br />RO: Naw, not…
<br />
<br />BL: That’s not a plan for that?
<br />
<br />RO: We do not have plans for that – when we talk about shoreline protection is, you know, like you
<br />think about the shoreline protection in Hilo – Hilo is the break wall – the break wall is a shoreline
<br />protection – that thing – but are there ways to accomplish that goal with a more nature-based
<br />solution. And no get me wrong, the break wall is excellent habitat, I get that, but, you know,
<br />stuff like there’s ways that we do shoreline protection projects that are not good habitat, as like
<br />the break wall, what I mean, I not sure we could have designed the break wall in a better way
<br />that would make even better fish habitat, what I’m saying, so kind of like incorporating – using
<br />one thing to address multiple problems or coming up with multiple solutions with one project,
<br />the solution is shoreline protection and fisheries habitat. Some projects you can wrap it up
<br />together and like I said, in our goal, in our plan those are two separate goals but at the end
<br />we’re gonna try and see if there’s ways to have projects that incorporate these multiple goals,
<br />for example, like shoreline protection and fisheries habitat project.
<br />
<br />BL: Like re-introducing mangrove forests along the shoreline – that were there before?
<br />
<br />RO: We actually support mangrove cutting down projects – we support the efforts in He’eia on
<br />Oahu, and we support the efforts at Honouliuli and both of those are heavy mangroves cutting
<br />down projects. So, we trying to move away from that for sure (move away from mangrove
<br />planting, in response to Brian Ley’s statement).
<br />
<br />BL: I got a good question, I don’t know if you were around, but it was a couple of years ago in – I
<br />think it was Honolulu they found some coral growing and they weren’t sure if it was released
<br />from an aquarium or got there on its own, but they went down there and removed all the coral.
<br />So, I was just wondering, why do you remove the coral if you’re not sure that it didn’t get here
<br />on itself and was able to thrive with the changing water conditions – that just didn’t make any
<br />sense – if we’re trying to propagate coral – does it matter if it’s type A or type B – as long as we
<br />have coral and the fish are thriving with it?
<br />RO: Well, no, no, that’s a good question. I appreciate the angle and the perspectives, yeah, and, and
<br />I – at the time of the project I was working on Oahu so I’m quite familiar with that project or,
<br />that effort had been reported in by stakeholders – fishermen from Kaneohe Bay – they rang the
<br />bell. They told us about it. They recognized it as something that was foreign and these are
<br />fishermen that have fished there for many, many, many, many, many years, yeah, lineal
<br />descendants of the area, I guess, some people call them. They rang the bell and they told us –
<br />they reached out to Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology (HMB) – cause they’re right there in
<br />Kaneohe Bay and then we – and HMB reached out to us and, yeah, it was a big effort to figure
<br />out first what it was and I think the consensus was they nevah know what it was but it wasn’t
<br />from Hawaii – that was the consensus and at that time we decided to take it out - yeah, because
<br />there were concerns that this coral was thriving and may take over the reef and this coral isn’t
<br />endemic or native to this area. The implications that, something like that taking over is
<br />unknown, we don’t know, so, we took it out – that removal effort was a good demonstration of
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