Health Impact Assessment of the Proposed Moʻomomi Community-Based Subsistence Fishing Area

Abstract

Hawai‘i State law provides pathways for island communities to apply for the designation of Community-Based Subsistence Fishing Areas (CBSFAs), allowing for comanagement of culturally significant and/or cologically vulnerable nearshore fisheries by the state and local communities. In the early 1990s residents of the Island of Moloka‘i expressed concern about Native Hawaiians’ rights to exercise traditional cultural fishing practices in nearshore environments. A task force report, commissioned in 1994 by then- Governor John Waihe‘e, recommended that the Mo‘omomi fishery area along the northwest coast of Moloka‘i serve as a demonstration area, in which fishing activities would be managed by the Ho‘olehua Homestead community primarily for subsistence rather than commercial use. The Hawai‘i State Legislature passed Hawai‘i Revised Statute §188-22.6 that same year, authorizing the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) to designate CBSFAs and implement management strategies “for the purpose of reaffirming and protecting fishing practices customarily and traditionally exercised for the purposes of [N]ative Hawaiian subsistence, culture, and religion.” Fish and other marine life are prominent staples of traditional Hawaiian diets, and overfishing, commercial harvesting methods, and a gradual movement away from the Hawaiian mahele system of sharing and other ancestral practices were identified as threats to community and cultural food security. Despite the passage of legislation more than 20 years ago, the proposed Mo‘omomi CBSFA remained a pilot project. Currently Hui Mālama O Mo‘omomi, a community organization based on Moloka‘i, is in the process of advancing a formal proposal to make traditional subsistence harvesting practices legally enforceable in the designated area of Moloka‘i’s north shore. This Health Impact Assessment seeks to provide information that will help evaluate the CBSFA proposal by taking into consideration potential effects of CBSFA status on community well-being. The authors also hope that the findings and recommendations of an HIA particular to the Mo‘omomi area may also prove relevant to CBSFA proposals from other regions of the state where such co-management strategies are being considered.