"These rules are about feeding our family, and about the ability to pass on our traditions to our children and grandchildren."
- Keliʻi Alapaʻi
Hāʻena Community-Based Subsistence Fishing Area (CBSFA)
On August 4, 2015 Hāʻena was designated as the first Community-Based Subsistence Fishing Area (CBSFA) in the State of Hawaiʻi
“sustainably support the consumptive needs of Hāʻena people through culturally rooted, community-based management that recognizes and response to connection between land and sea and strives to restore the necessary balance of native species.”
- Proposed Mgmt Plan for Hāʻena CBSFA (2011)
Community members with ancestral ties to Hāʻena, along with their supporters, worked for over a decade to establish these unique fishing rules, which are designed to perpetuate subsistence fishing traditions and nearshore resources of this area, for both current and future generations.
Hāʻena CBSFA 2019 Report:
https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/dar/files/2020/07/2019_Final_Haena_report.pdf
Hāʻena CBSFA 2023 5-Year Review Documents and Video:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RBrXTzOoQJKE_sb4xROamRcFGMRW1Tie/view?usp=sharing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzt-yFpQYbk&t=18s
Photo of Thomas Hashimoto
Hāʻena CBSFA Fishing Rules:
1. No commercial harvesting of marine resources (except for invasive limu)
2. No fishing in or entry into the Makua Puʻuhonua refuge area (see map) without a permit.
3. No fish feeding.
4. Only the following harvesting activities are allowed within the Hāʻena CBSFA outside of the Makua Puʻuhonua area:
-
OK to collect empty pūpū (shells) with a snorkel, not SCUBA.
-
OK to collect limu (seaweed) only by hand.
-
Beginning December 1, 2017,
20 live shells provisions (i.e. ʻōpihi, pipipi, kūpeʻe, pūpū) may be taken and possessed per person per day in the ʻŌpihi Management Area only.
-
OK to take and possess two lobster per day per person, harvested by hand only.
-
OK to only take and posses up to 5 wana (sea urchins) per species per person per day.
-
OK to only take and posses up to 2 heʻe (octopus) per person per day, by hand or a stick no longer than 2 ft. long
-
No fishing with more than 2 poles with 2 hooks per pole.
-
No spear guns.
-
OK to go spearfishing with a pole spear (3-prong) up to 8ft. long during the day between 6AM - 6PM
-
OK to use a throw net
-
OK to take up to 3 specimens of marine life using a scoop net of no more than 3 ft. in any dimension, during the day between 6AM - 6PM
-
OK to surround net or paʻi paʻi net from shore or with a vessel no more than 14ft. long, with at least 2 people staying within 5 ft. of the net at all times while it is in the water.
-
OK to posses any fishing equipment or gear while in a vessel seaward of the Vessel Transit Boundary (see map).
For more information on the Hāʻena CBSFA rules and process:
https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/dar/regulated-areas/haena-community-based-subsistence-fishing-area/