Protecting Fish to Save Coral Reefs

Coral reefs off the west coast of Maui are readily accessible and heavily used by visitors and locals alike. To restore declining reef habitats suffering from excessive algae growth, Hawai’i Department of Land and Natural Resources implemented a herbivore protection plan that restricts extraction of herbivorous fish and invertebrates from the reefs. The project was supported by local Hawaiian spear and subsistence fishers. From 2009 to 2015, two protected herbivorous fish species parrotfish and surgeonfish biomass increased by 139 percent and 28 percent, respectively. Additionally, the cover of algae that sustain coral growth also rose from 2 percent to 15 percent.