| The Aquarium Trade is Trying to Obtain Commercial Permits to Extract Wildlife from Hawai’i Reefs! |
| The PIJAC has submitted its “revised final environmental impact statement” to the Board of Land & Natural Resources. Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of the reefs. Please notify all you can that testimony will be crucial. Credentials and insight on aquarium extraction will be vital. Testimony is key. Hawaii as a rich, cultural and tropical center. |
The hearing is this Friday, June 25. Email Testimony no later thanThursday, June 24 (must be a day in advance) to: [email protected]
Important Information
Begin testimony with “I am a Hawaii resident….” OR, “After years of visiting, I have Hawaii in my heart….”
The RFEIS is here: http://oeqc2.doh.hawaii.gov/EA_EIS_Library/2021-06-08-HA-Revised-FEIS-Hawaii-Island-Commercial-Aquarium-Permits.pdf
Reference agenda item F.3, state your name and ask BLNR (Board of Land & Natural Resources) to REJECT the Revised Final Environmental Impact Statement (RFEIS). Say you are a Hawaii resident or visitor, and have Hawaii in your heart, in your own words. Pick 1 or 2 of the points below, and speak your mind. If you have credentials, say so:
The RFEIS states that aquarium collection will include 8 species, down from 40, as if saying it will make it so. Kona Coast history of poaching and devastation includes coral damage from anchors, chains, nets and collectors destroying corals to flush reef wildlife.
The RFEIS is STILL a wholly owned product of the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council (PIJAC) a D.C. lobbyist notorious for pressing Congress to allow puppy mills. The Hawaii RFEIS is STILL based on livelihood for 7 Hawaii collectors and revenue for the aquarium trade.
Most data referenced is skewed, gathered by the Department of Land & Natural Resources, in cahoots with aquarium collectors, propagating the “sustainability” lie but never defining “sustainability.” The RFEIS claims revenue and jobs from aquarium collection but fails to assess impact on reef-based tourism – exponentially more revenue, jobs—and reef conservation.What is this inability of the aquarium trade lobby, and small number of fishers who used to make money from taking wild fish from our reefs, to take NO for an answer? Are they really back here trying to defend the indefensible again, or as Oscar Wilde once said of fox hunting – “the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable”? The “need” to engage in this extractive process at a time when our reefs are facing multiple existential threats is fundamentally contrary to the Hawaii state motto, the mandate of the DLNR andcommon sense. Taking wildlife from our reefs and selling them as decorations is never pono, means they never reproduce, and should stay illegal.
-Angela Huntemer MEd, Oahu
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