Go Fish

Mo’omomi fishing calender out now.

The latest edition of the Pono Fishing Calendar, an important tool in preventing overfishing, came out last month. The calendar teaches fishermen when not to fish, based on each species’ life cycle, to ensure healthy fish stocks.

Hui Malama o Mo`omomi has published the calendar for over 10 years. The 2011 calendar will unfortunately be the last because of the time and effort it takes to put together, according to Mac Poepoe, a longtime resource manager at Mo`omomi.

 Hopefully by now, he said, the community has learned the lessons.

 “Some people say, ‘You get the same thing in there.’ I say, ‘Did you get the idea?’” Poepoe said.

While the information, gathered from Poepoe and other longtime users of the area, is the same, the design of the calendar has improved over the years, from simple copy paper to a glossy, sturdy calendar.

The 2011 calendar was published with the help of Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, a federal agency that manages offshore fisheries.

WesPac uses it as an example of how communities can regulate and sustain resources on their own using traditional practices.

“This is traditional Hawaiian practices that [people] don’t know much about, but it’s actually really simple… It’s nature,” Poepoe said.

Two thousand copies of the calendar are printed to be distributed around Hawaii, the Pacific and on the mainland, as well as on Molokai.