Comment from Roy Morioka

Gentlemen: I wish to first note that the MHI BF fishery is no longer in an overfishing state and the continuing duplicate management regulations between the State of Hawaii and the federal government are disadvantaging fishing communities especially on Oahu and the Big Island of Hawaii's Ka'u district. The temporal federal mandate which most MHI BF fishermen support is compounded by a spatial restriction imposed by the State. MHI BF Fishermen are on record: 1- Remove the spatial restriction as the temporal regulation fulfills the resource management objectives of the agency as prescribed by the 2006 MSA Reauthorization using the ACL and its associated management criteria and elements; 2- if the spatial restrictions cannot be removed, then the equivalent resource conserved must be factored into the federal stock assessment; 3- If the federal agency finds it difficult to override the State measure, then at least open the federal waters encumbered to the MHI BF fishermen; and, 4- If this is also problematic, at least credit the fishermen with the resource conserved by the spatial restriction in federal waters in their stock assessments. Thank you for your consideration. Roy N. Morioka MHI BF Fisherman