U.S.A.
September 18, 2017
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 9
Ruling halts commercial scooping
of Hawai‘i aquarium fish
By Jennifer Sinco Kelleher
The Associated Press
ONOLULU — A Hawai‘i
Supreme Court ruling has
halted
the
commercial
scooping of reef fish for aquariums
until the state reviews the trade’s
environmental impact.
Hawai‘i is the world’s third largest
source of commercial fish, after
Indonesia and the Philippines, said
Rene Umberger, an avid diver who is
among a group of plaintiffs including
subsistence fishermen and environ-
mentalists who sued the state in
2012.
There’s especially high demand for
Hawai‘i’s yellow tang, Umberger
said.
The state’s practice of doling out
permits for commercial aquarium
fish collection must comply with the
Hawai‘i Environmental Policy Act,
the ruling said. A lower court must
determine if recreational aquarium
fish collection may be exempt from
the law, the ruling said.
“It certainly is the biggest step
forward in getting a handle on this
industry, which has been virtually
unregulated,’’ Earthjustice attorney
Paul Achitoff said of the ruling.
H
HURRICANE HARVEY. Viet Dao talks about his experiences dur-
ing Hurricane Harvey at his home in Spring, Texas. “It hits you right there:
We have nowhere to escape,” Dao, 48, said by phone. “If it was just me,
it’s OK, I can survive. But I just don’t know how can I help my children and
family get out. It’s really frustrating.” (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
No strangers to displacement,
Vietnamese recover from Harvey
Continued from page 8
the country by boat when
she was six years old, with
her parents and two baby
brothers.
Diep has been keeping
track
of
Vietnamese-
American
fishermen
outside
Houston
and
helping elderly and non-
English speaking victims
fill out forms for aid in the
aftermath of Harvey. She
says it took years for
families along the coast to
rebuild
after
2008’s
Hurricane Ike wiped out
shrimping and fishing
boats along the Gulf Coast.
“There is this history of
having to leave your home
from disaster, from place to
place,” she said.
She was still in spotty
communication with about
200 Vietnamese-American
families in nearby Port
Arthur, an area 90 miles
east of Houston hit hard by
flash floods. She said
families
in
nearby
Anahuac did not sustain
much damage to homes,
but lost netting and fishing
traps to water.
Dao, the homeowner in
the Houston suburb of
Spring, said his family
owned a jewelry store in
Saigon before 1975. He fled
his country in a fishing
boat with more than a
dozen others, ending up in
a
refugee
camp
in
Thailand, where he stayed
for nearly a year. From
there, he eventually moved
to Wisconsin, then San
Diego, before settling in
Houston.
He married his childhood
friend’s sister, Christine
Truong, with whom he has
two children, a six-year-old
boy and 12-year-old girl.
He opened a deli and they
bought their dream home.
The family survived
Harvey,
camping
out
upstairs with a mini
refrigerator for several
nights. But the house that
Truong calls the best she’s
ASTHMA
IS
ON
THE RISE.
Help us find a cure.
1-800-LUNG-USA
ever lived in is soggy and
soiled. Like many people,
they do not have flood
insurance.
Dao dreaded bringing
the children home, but said
they had no choice.
“We break down from
time to time, of course, but
we try not to let them see
it,” he said, “because if we
give up, how are we going to
rebuild what we have?”
Har reported from San Francisco.
AP data journalist Angeliki Kastanis
contributed to this report.
SCOOPING STOPPED. Yellow tang aquarium fish are seen in a tank at a store in Aiea,
Hawai‘i. A Hawai‘i Supreme Court ruling has halted the commercial collection of reef fish for
aquariums until the state reviews the trade’s environmental impact. (AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy)
Earthjustice represented the group of
plaintiffs whose lawsuit argued there
should have been environmental
reviews before the state Department
of Land and Natural Resources
issued the permits.
In Hawai‘i, the brightly colored
tropical fish are scooped up into nets
and flown across the globe into
aquariums.
The aquarium fishery off Hawai‘i’s
Big Island is among the best
managed in the world, scientists say.
Yet there’s been a long-running
conflict over whether it’s appropriate
to remove fish from reefs for people’s
viewing enjoyment.
“Taking
tropical
fish
from
Hawai‘ian reefs harms that fragile
ecosystem,’’ Miyoko Sakashita, ocean
program director for the Center for
Biological Diversity — one of the
plaintiffs — said in a statement.
“Maybe now people will begin to
realize that people are loving these
beautiful fish to death.’’
Each commercial aquarium col-
Continued on page 16
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