Bob Fram is passionate about the sustainability of Hawaii's fishing industry. The owner of Garden & Valley Isle Seafood, one of the Aloha State's largest seafood distributors, Fram has seen the fishery change dramatically over the past 10 years. The adaptation of C-shaped hooks by all of the state's tuna longline fleet, for example, has dramatically reduced interactions with sea turtles, whose soft mouths can't easily get snagged on the new hooks. (According to the World Wildlife Fund, studies have shown that use of C-shaped hooks reduces interactions with leatherback turtles, the most common and widely distributed sea turtle species, by as much as 67 percent). 

"Our tuna fishery has become incredibly sustainable," contends Fram.  While C-shaped hooks are now mandatory, so is observer coverage and a cap has been placed on the number of boats. The Hawaiian tuna fleet, which target deepwater bigeye, also must adhere to a strict quota, unlike almost all the other tuna fisheries in the world. (Hawaii's bigeye quota has been about 3,700 metric tons for the past three years, less than 3 percent of the bigeye catch in the Pacific.) 

Like most other Hawaii distributors, Garden & Valley Isle buys most of its fish on the Honolulu Fish Auction , which has been in operation since 1952 and moved a few years ago to a new state-of-the-art facility on the Honolulu waterfront. In addition to tuna, which is by far the state's most valuable fishery, bycatch of the tuna fleet like opah and monchong are sold at the auction along with deep water snappers like the various Hawaiian snappers like opakapaka and onaga. 

Fram says Hawaii longliners that fish swordfish have also changed the way they fish to reduce interactions with turtles and sea birds. Boats participating in the Hawaiian sword fishery, which was closed from 2001-2004 due to concerns about sea turtle interactions, must now adhere to a raft of new regulations that require full observer coverage, mandatory gear requirements like the use of circle hooks and  mackerel-like bait instead of squid. The new regulations have proved so effective that fisheries managers have been able to reduce the cap on turtle interactions that can shut the sword fishery down if they are reached. This March, for example, the annual interaction limit for loggerhead turtles was reduced from 46 to just 17. 

Fram, though, is more than a little frustrated that the word on the sustainability of Hawaii's fishing industry is not getting out there. That's why he just started Sustainable Oceans Society, a new non profit designed to spread the word. "I wanted to start it 10 years ago," he says.  "We have to come up with solutions to educate our legislators and consumers, so we can try and change the economics of our tuna fisheries." 

A 30-year veteran of the seafood industry who got his start selling farmed Hawaiian shrimp, Fram is particularly incensed by the large purse seine tuna fleets  that use floating aggregate devices (FADs) to target bigeye and yellowfin tuna, many of which are immature and used for canning. "We need to get the  story out there about the benefits of the hook-and-line fishery," he says, noting that a mature hook-and-line tuna is worth at least five times as much as small tuna bound for canneries. He also wants to lobby the small Pacific Island nations to rescind the tuna fishing rights they have given to foreign flag seiners and encourage them instead to develop their own hook-and-line fishing fleets. 

In the meantime, though, Fram still has fish to sell. The tourism industry in Hawaii has rebounded nicely, he says, noting that he just added the new Disney resort on the west coast of Oahu to his account base.

 

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