(Honolulu-AP) -- A consultant hired by an advisory council working on establishing a new marine sanctuary says commercial fishing should be banned in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to protect the reefs.
Bruce Wilcox, a conservation biologist with the Sustainable Resources Group, told the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve's Advisory Council that such a ban is needed to protect the island chain's ecosystem.
The council hired Wilcox's group to come up with guidelines to manage fishing in the reserve as part of the process of it becoming a National Marine Sanctuary.
A fisherman who's an alternate member on the council says he supports protecting the islands' coral reefs. But Gary Dill says Wilcox's proposal is extreme and says the mission of the council has gone beyond protecting coral reefs to the entire ecosystem.
The 10 mostly uninhabited islets and atolls in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands extend 12-hundred miles northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands.
A December 2000 executive order signed by President Clinton set aside 84 (m) million acres of ocean around the archipelago as the Northwestern Hawaiian Island Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, the largest protected area ever established in the United States.
The islands are home to more than 70 percent of the nation's coral reefs and to endangered Hawaiian monk seals and other sea life.
