{"id":131936,"date":"2020-12-07T11:59:59","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T21:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=131936"},"modified":"2020-12-07T12:00:38","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T22:00:38","slug":"closing-palau-fisheries-leads-to-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/12\/07\/closing-palau-fisheries-leads-to-lessons\/","title":{"rendered":"Closing Palau fisheries leads to lessons for Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> &lt; 1<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minute<\/span><\/span><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-ctahr-fish.jpg\" alt=\"fish\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-131933\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-ctahr-fish.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-ctahr-fish-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-ctahr-fish-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With 340 islands spread over the Pacific, it is no wonder the residents of Palau heavily depend on the ocean for food. When the isolated archipelago closed 80% of its ocean to fishing in order to conserve biodiversity and ensure future food security, the concern quickly became, &ldquo;What are the unintended consequences on local ecosystems and people and what could it mean for <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Hawai&#699;i<\/span> and other coastal communities?&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Enter an ongoing, multinational investigation of these potential socio-economic impacts, led by <a href=\"https:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\">University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Hawai&#699;i<\/span> at M\u0101noa<\/a> Associate Professor <strong>Kirsten Oleson<\/strong> of the College of Tropical Agriculture <a href=\"https:\/\/cms.ctahr.hawaii.edu\/nrem\/\">Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management<\/a>. The study concludes the new mandate will increase both offshore fish prices and tourist consumption of reef fish\u2014which could endanger local reef ecosystems. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-ctahr-palau-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"group of women\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-131934\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-ctahr-palau-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-ctahr-palau-130x73.jpg 130w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/manoa-ctahr-palau.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>However, if tourists are offered a sustainable offshore fish choice, their demand for fish could be kept at current levels, and environmental impacts from increased reef fish consumption could be avoided. <\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The Palau National Marine Sanctuary sets an international benchmark for protecting our oceans,&rdquo; said Oleson. &ldquo;Our findings support the government by turning potential downsides of fishery closures into new opportunities for the local economy.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The lesson learned is applicable to <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Hawai&#699;i<\/span>, Oleson added, in that policies to protect the ocean, coastline, forests etc. should consider the impact on food systems in order to avoid unintended environmental consequences. <\/p>\n<p>The study, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s43016-020-00192-7\">Conservation policies informed by food system feedbacks can avoid unintended consequences<\/a>, is published in <em>Nature Food<\/em>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The lesson learned is applicable to <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Hawai&#699;i<\/span> in that policies to protect the ocean should consider the impact on food systems in order to avoid unintended environmental consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[212,1363,544,158,9],"class_list":["post-131936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","tag-college-of-tropical-agriculture-and-human-resilience","tag-manoa-research","tag-natural-resources-and-environmental-management","tag-publication","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131936"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131945,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131936\/revisions\/131945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}