In Hawai’i and the Pacific, taking care of the islands’ coastal resources is critical to people’s livelihoods, lifestyles, and general well-being. More effective resource management will ensure sustainable use of these resources while providing long term benefits to Hawai’i residents, as well as ensuring a quality visitor experience. Ninety percent of Hawai’i’s plants and animals, more than10,000 species, exist nowhere else on Earth. The only tropical rainforests in the U.S. are found in Hawai’i, as well as 84 percent of all coral reefs under U.S. jurisdiction. There is no private ownership of coastal resources. Hawai’i’s beaches, its nearshore reefs, the ocean, and all that impact them from land, are at the heart of its appeal and an annual economy that accounts for more than $10 billion in

tourism revenues. Hawai’i is also steeped in an ancient cultural heritage that reflects a life-affirming relationship with the islands’ landscape, native species and ecological processes. At the same time, attempts to protect delicate ecosystems are balanced with increasingly overpopulated coastlines and unharnessed business development.