Action Alerts

Help protect Hawai‘i’s treasured coral reef ecosystems for generations to come

What's At Stake

Hawai‘i’s reefs are facing a major threat. Since 2017, an Earthjustice legal victory has protected them from commercial aquarium collection.

Now, Hawai‘i regulators are bowing to industry pressure to reopen the state to this practice – and we need your help to stop them.

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For decades, Hawai‘i was a major supplier of the world’s aquarium pet trade. Between 1976 and 2018, the aquarium pet industry took more than 8.6 million fish from west Hawaiian waters to sell for private fish tanks and aquariums around the world. Many of these fish are essential to coral reef health and are prized food sources for Native Hawaiians.

The damage from commercial aquarium collection is part of a pattern of harm by extractive industries that has played out around the U.S. Activities like logging, mining, and fossil fuel drilling hurt those who live nearby, especially Indigenous groups that have long stewarded these lands. Commercial aquarium divers target colorful reef fishes, many of which are found only in Hawai‘i. The divers chase schools of fish into fine-meshed nets where they cannot escape, then ship them to pet sellers and hobbyists around the world. 

We need your help to keep Hawai‘i’s reef ecosystems thriving for generations to come. 

An Earthjustice win at the Hawai‘i Supreme Court halted this practice, with the court ruling that the state could not allow more commercial aquarium collection until it studied the industry’s environmental impacts. Now, Hawai‘i regulators are considering rules to reopen Hawai‘i’s reefs to this extractive practice, beginning with west Hawai‘i Island. The pet industry is mounting a global campaign to push the rules through – and you have an opportunity to counterbalance industry’s efforts by submitting your public comment. 

People across Hawai‘i overwhelmingly support permanently ending commercial aquarium collection. We need Hawai‘i regulators to reject these proposed rules, which would do the exact opposite. 

Don’t let Hawai‘i regulators bow to industry pressure, tell them you oppose rules to reopen Hawai‘i’s reefs to commercial aquarium collection.

School of bright yellow tang fish swimming closely together over a rocky coral reef in clear blue ocean water in Hawaiʻi.
Kaikea Nakachi

5 Days Remain

Delivery to Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Aquatic Resources

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Your Actions Matter

Your messages make a difference, even if we have leaders who don't want to listen. Here's why.

You level the playing field.

Elected officials pay attention when they see that we are paying attention. Read more.

They may be hearing from industry lobbyists left and right, but hearing the stories of their constituents — that’s your power.

Our legislators serve at the pleasure of the people who gave them their job — you.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. When you contact your elected official, you’re putting a face and a name on an issue.

Whether or not you voted for them, they work for you, for the duration of their term.

Make sure your elected officials know whose community and whose values they represent. (Find your local, state, and federal elected officials.)

Your action is with us in court.

If a federal agency finalizes a harmful action, the record of public comments provides a basis for bringing them into court. Read more.

Throughout each of the public comment periods we alert you to, Earthjustice’s attorneys are researching and writing in-depth, technical comments to submit — detailing how the regulation could and should be stronger to protect the environment, our communities, and our planet.

We need you to join us — your specific experiences, knowledge, and voice are crucial to add to the Administrative Record through the comment periods.

Lawsuits we file that challenge weak or harmful federal regulations rely on what was submitted during the comment period. The court can only look at documents that are in the Administrative Record — including the public comments — to decide if the agency did something improper.

Your actions aid our litigation. Taking action and submitting comments during a comment period is substantively important.

It’s the law.

Federal agencies must pause what they’re doing and ask for — and consider — your comment. Read more.

Many of us may have never heard of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), but laws like these require our government to ask the public to weigh in before agencies adopt or change regulations.

Regulations essentially describe how federal agencies will carry out laws — including decisions that could undermine science, or weaken safeguards on public health.

Public comments are collected at various points throughout the federal government’s rulemaking process, including when a regulation is proposed and finalized. (Learn about the rulemaking process.) These comments become part of the official, legal public record — the “Administrative Record.”

When the public responds with a huge outpouring of support for environmental protections, these individual messages collectively undercut politicians' attempts to claim otherwise.

What this means is each of us can take a role in shaping the rules our government creates — and ensuring those rules are fair and effective.