Summary

Description

Hawaiian Archipelago: Several urban areas and popular tourist destinations have suffered from pollution from the land, significant fishing pressure, recreational overuse, and alien species. Despite these pressures, many coral reefs in Hawaii remain in fair to good condition, especially remote reefs; most MPAs have proven to be highly effective in conserving biodiversity and fisheries resources. MPA size, habitat quality, and level of protection are the most important success factors, but several MPAs are too small to have significant effects outside their boundaries; communitybased management has been effective at several locations in Hawaii and expansion of these efforts is being encouraged; continued invasion and degradation of new habitats by alien species remains one of the most pressing threats to reefs in Hawaii; the Papahnaumokukea Marine National Monument PMNM is the largest fully protected marine conservation area in the world, with a unique predatordominated trophic structure, many endemic species, and many threatened and endangered species. This is an important global biodiversity hot spot;global impacts such as climate change sea level rise, ocean warming and acidification and marine debris threaten the unique ecosystem of the PMNM, and rapid international action is needed. US Pacific Remote Island Areas PRIAs: These are remote with limited human impacts, therefore they are nearly intact reefs with healthy coral communities, and predatordominated fish assemblages with the highest fish biomass of all USA coral reefs and near the highest recorded anywhere; Palmyra and Kingman are large atolls with higher coral biodiversity compared to other central Pacific islands: that may be due to being in the path of eastward flowing North Pacific Equatorial Countercurrent; abandoned shipwrecks and associated fuel spills and degradation of reefs threatens these remote islands, including the rapid spread of an invasive corallimorph, Rhodactis, stimulated by dissolved iron at Palmyra and Baker; residual World War II military construction and use continues to degrade habitats at Palmyra, Johnston, Wake, and Baker; the US Government is considering proposing the Central Pacific Islands Marine National Monument, which would create the worlds largest MPA.