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Community Participation in Hawai’i Commercial Fisheries

July 03, 2021

A responsibility of NOAA Fisheries is to consider the effects of fisheries management on fishing communities. This report assess community participation for select Hawaiʻi commercial fisheries 2000-2018.

One of the responsibilities of NOAA Fisheries is to consider potential effects of fisheries management on fishing communities, “...to provide for the sustained participation of such communities and...to the extent practicable, minimize adverse economic impacts on such communities” (Magnuson Stevens Act (MSA), National Standard 8 (NS8), 16 U.S.C. § 1851(a)(8)). In 2017, NOAA Fisheries released a report on Community Participation in Catch Share Programs (Colburn et al. 2017) that identified community-level catch share performance metrics to understand changes in social vulnerability and community participation in fisheries involved in each of the U.S. catch share programs.

This report applies methodologies in Colburn et al. (2017) to assess community participation for select Hawaiʻi commercial fisheries from 2000 to 2018. Fishing communities are defined at the Census County Division (CCD) geographic scale resulting in 41 assessed in this report. Fisheries chosen for analysis include the pelagic longline, small boat Highly Migratory Species (HMS), main Hawaiian Islands (MHI) Deep 7 bottomfish, uku, and nearshore and reef fisheries, which collectively account for nearly all commercial fishing landings in the State of Hawaiʻi. For each fishery, we present a fishery performance overview, trends in community performance, and community social vulnerability indicators. Community performance is assessed through a Fishing Engagement Index (FEI) and metrics detailing community importance to regional fisheries (Regional Quotient) and fishery importance to local communities (Local Quotient) relative to a fishery-specific 3-year baseline period. Community social vulnerability indicators are calculated for environmental justice, economic, and gentrification pressure vulnerability.


Hospital J, Leong K. 2021. Community Participation in Hawai'i Commercial Fisheries. U.S. Dept. of Commerce, NOAA Technical Memorandum NOAA-TM-NMFS-PIFSC-89, 213 p.  https://doi.org/10.25923/p4aj-k323.

Last updated by Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center on 07/09/2022