rstrann
Active Member
I returned last week from a 17 day trip through the Hawaiian islands. I hopped from Oahu to Maui to the Big Island to Kauai and back. I try to visit Hawaii every other year, and I spend most of my time on the Big Island. For at least half of my trips, I usually snorkel for the majority of my time. The first time I snorkeled in Hawaii was at Hanauma Bay in 1990. I've gone back maybe half a dozen times over the years, but i haven't been to the Bay in the last 12 years, until this most recent trip. My heart broke. There was scantly a living coral that I could find. I spent 4 hours there, and saw 5 small pocillipora and 3 small montipora colonies. In contrast, I have underwater pictures taken in 1990 of a Hanauma Bay teeming with corals to the point that there was aggression between neighboring corals competing for space. The number of fish species has dwindled to a point as well, that I see more marine diversity in a Petco than in Hanuama Bay. The number of tourists there is staggering, each paying a $7.50 entrance fee, and then however much the vendors charge for snorkeling gear. It's plain to see that the state of Hawaii has sold nature out. They have the audacity to make people sit through a 15 minute video lecture about how much they do to protect the reef, while the lecture room itself is holding over 300 people entering the park, every half hour. Hawaii claims to care about their reefs, by passing legislation that bans collection of ornamental fish, and the sale of coral-killing sunscreen. Yet they don't dare question their own greed when it comes to allowing 3 MILLION tourists per year desecrate the reef. That's an average of 8,219 people a day. That equates to over $22 million dollars a year in entrance fees, alone. Hawaii's legislators should be absolutely ashamed. The mere swipe of a pen would apply a cap on the number of people allowed in the park every day, in order to allow the reef to heal. But no, they'd rather turn a blind eye and keep collecting millions, while touting themselves as defenders of the environment. Hypocrites.
