Community involvement and cooperation is the key to successful management of coral reef resources. Volunteer monitoring provides an opportunity for people to feel connected to the management process rather than alienated by it. Informed and knowledgeable community members are more likely to support management controls resulting from scientific monitoring.

With earlier funding from the Hawaii Coral Reef Initiative, a model for a volunteer monitoring program “ReefWatchers” was developed to gather data of interest to the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Aquatic Resources (DLNR-DAR). The protocol was developed in collaboration with state agency researchers, resource managers, and the volunteers themselves. Volunteer monitoring protocols include fish surveys on point-to-point transects, random swim surveys, and tidepool surveys.

The Malama Kai Foundation received a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to fund this Sea Grant Project. Under this grant, the existing volunteer monitoring program is being expanded to specific outlying communities - typically, small Hawaiian fishing communities - along the west coast of Hawaii Island. By educating community members about the coral reef ecosystem, latest available scientific information, and how to use monitoring to detect changes in the coral reefs they use for subsistence fishing, these communities will be better able to contribute to the effective management of their coral reef resources

In association with this project, local resource councils (LRCs) have been developed to define and communicate village concerns about local marine resources to the West Hawaii Fishery Council (WHFC), a community-based management group comprised of stakeholders. The WHFC serves in an advisory capacity to DLNR's Division of Aquatic Resources. A WHFC Liaison, selected from the Hawaiian community and funded through a private grant, works with the local communities to facilitate their participation.

Project Goals:
To attract, educate, and train volunteers within each of three outlying communities along the west coast of Hawaii;

To develop and run protocols useful for Hawaiian subsistence fishers for assessing fish populations, substrate and general coral reef health; and

To create informational conduits from spatially distanced coral reef areas to the regional management council and DLNR-DAR.

The project began in December 2001. After initial meetings with village elders or kupuna, five Local Resource Council meetings were held before June 30, 2002, three in Milolii village and two in North Kohala. The WHFC also undertook a retreat in which members were trained in decision making and conflict management skills. The goal of the WHFC is to create a forum for diverse stakeholders to air their concerns about marine resources management issues in a culturally-sensitive manner comfortable to the range of ethnicities found in our communities. The successful melding of the Hawaiian decision making style with the western “facilitation” style will be an important step toward increasing the participatory interface between the village community and state and government agencies in the future.

Between March and September 2002, 65 new ReefWatchers and 31 previous ReefWatchers were trained in fish counting transects and tidepool monitoring techniques and fish identification. Nine Milolii students, ages 8-15, were also trained in the ReefWatcher Tidepool Protocol. Volunteers have chosen their transect/survey sites, with approval by the University of Hawaii Sea Grant. An additional 15 sites are likely to be added to the existing 11 monitoring sites. As data is gathered, quality control will be monitored by the local Sea Grant Extension Service, experienced volunteers, and University of Hawaii at Hilo students who are running separate surveys. Surveys will be compared and analyzed for accuracy and trends.

On December 21, 2002, the project co-sponsored with The Nature Conservancy, PapaPono, Inc., and DLNR-DAR the first training and monitoring event in Milolii Village.

Another component of this community-based coral monitoring project has been to consolidate and analyze existing field data provided by volunteer monitors. Data generated in 2000-2002 from previously-trained ReefWatchers was put into a database. Results show that Achilles tangs (Achanthurus achilles) are depleted in every area. These fishes are sought both as aquarium fishes and are highly prized food fishes for the Hawaiian palate. The Four Spot Butterflyfish (Cheatodon quadramaculatus) is not well represented in the transect sites and should be, because it is an omnivore with a fairly large range. It is, however, a popular aquarium fish, as is the Yellowtail wrasse (Coris gaimard). Results indicate that fishes not sought for aquarium collection fare better in terms of numbers throughout, with the exception of the damselfish Hawaiian Sergeant (Abudefduf abdominalis).

The project also attempts to analyze the effects of alien and invasive species, particularly Lutjanus kasmira and Cephalopholis argus, on the coral reef environment. The blue-lined snapper (Lutjanus kasmira) and the peacock grouper (Cephalopholis argus) were introduced into the marine environment as food fish in the 1950s and adapted well to the Hawaiian environment. Unfortunately, neither became a food fish: the snapper did not catch on as a popular food fish, and the grouper is ciguatoxic. Island fishers often blame these two introduced fishes for the depletion of other fishes. Recent and ongoing research suggests that these fishes are not responsible for the depletion of the fish populations in general. The monitoring counts do not show a large population of either introduced species at the transect sites. Data continue to be collected at most of these sites.

This Community-Based Coral Monitoring Project was completed December 31, 2003.

NFWF website

Between March and September 2002, 65 new ReefWatchers and 31 previous ReefWatchers were trained in fish counting transects and tidepool monitoring techniques and fish identification.

Please click on the photos below for a larger view.

Photo Credits
Jack's Diving Locker
Dive Makai
UH Sea Grant
Ellyn Tong