Impacts of commercial and subsistence fishing on marine and cultural ecosystem services important to the wellbeing of an Indigenous community in Hawai'i

Abstract

Marine ecosystems provide essential services to coastal residents, particularly for indigenous fishing communities that have strong ties to the environment and obtain multiple benefits from their use and management of ocean spaces. However, understanding of how these are impacted by fisheries, external pressures, and ocean management, remains limited due to a focus on economic valuation and aggregated metrics. This study explores the importance of select marine ecosystem services to the wellbeing of an indigenous community in West Hawaiˈi and the observed impacts on these ecosystem services by commercial and subsistence fishing. We used a mixed-methods approach that combined a workshop with an online survey of community perceptions regarding community important marine resources and cultural values. We find that both fish and non-fish species are important to all four well-being categories, including food security, culture, mental wellbeing, and income, though the least importance was given to the economic value. This study also found that commercial fishing is perceived to have a higher negative impact on marine resources and cultural values than subsistence fishing, but a generally lower impact on non-fish than fish species. The lack of community input into legislation development and a lack of enforcement capacity were perceived to aggravate these further, whereas the integration of place-based knowledge, values and rules of the environment was seen as beneficial to both marine and cultural ecosystem services. Overall, this study shows that non-economic and disaggregated valuation approaches are critical for revealing the variable ecosystem services that marine environments provide to local communities and the importance of more inclusive resource management approaches to manage impacts on these services.