Minton, Dwayne; Eric Conklin; Alan Friedlander; Rebecca Most; Kydd Pollock; Konstantinos Stamoulis; Chad Wiggins

Establishing the Baseline Condition of the Marine Resources: Results of the 2012 and 2013 Ka'upulehu, Hawaii Marine Surveys

2014

The Nature Conservancy NOAA, NOS, Office for Coastal Management

"This report describes the findings from surveys of the Kaupulehu reef and adjacent reefs conducted between 2012-2013 by the TNC marine monitoring team and partners at the University of Hawaii's Fisheries Ecology Research Laboratory. These surveys were specifically designed and conducted to establish a rigorous baseline condition of fish and benthic resources both inside the proposed community management area and in adjacent areas. Combined with data previously collected by TNC, five years of baseline information is now available inside the Kaupulehu FRA, and represents one of the strongest pre-management datasets in existence. These baseline data will be critical to assessing the effectiveness of the proposed 10-year resting period, and we hope it will be used to strengthen community-led conservation efforts by providing scientifically credible information that is of interest to the community, region, and state of Hawaii, and that it will help the Kaupulehu community to share their story and explain their decisions as they work to return abundance to their reefs."

FY12; CRCP Project ID: 198; Project Title: Domestic Coral Reef Conservation Grant Programs; Principal Investigator: Jenny Waddell; Grant Number: NA11NOS4820072