Hawaiʻi Fish Habitat Partnership
Our mission is to protect and restore Hawaiʻi's inland and nearshore ecosystems — from mountain streams and estuaries to nearshore coral reefs.
Together with partners across the state, we're restoring the resources native species and communities depend on.
The partnership's primary goal is to support abundant native species while preserving the cultural and subsistence connections native Hawaiians and all Hawaiʻi residents have with their aquatic resources. Through practical, on-the-ground projects, the Hawaiʻi FHP removes barriers to fish migration, controls invasive plants, improves water quality, and engages local students and volunteers in conservation work.
A diverse partnership
The Hawaiʻi FHP is composed of a diverse group of partners planning and implementing a technically sound aquatic habitat restoration program statewide, directing efforts toward streams, estuaries, anchialine pools, and adjacent nearshore marine habitats.
More about us →Landscape-scale restoration
The Hawaiʻi FHP is committed to implementing habitat restoration at the appropriate landscape scale to achieve real conservation benefits, coordinating funding from multiple sources.
Our projects →National support
Funding is coordinated in part through direct support from the National Fish Habitat Partnership. Visit fishhabitat.org to learn more about the national network.
In the news →Key threats to fish habitat in Hawaiʻi
- Instream structures and barriers, including stream diversions, dams, channel alteration, and road crossings
- Introduced aquatic invasive species
- Increased urbanization resulting in polluted runoff, hydraulic change, and loss of freshwater and coastal marine/coral reef habitat
- Suspended sediment input from agriculture and forestry management
- Unregulated harvesting of fishes and invertebrates for consumption and retail sale (e.g., anchialine pool shrimp)
- Recreational overuse, including trampling and tourism-related impacts
- Feral ungulate impacts, including trampling, uprooting, vegetation change, and soil erosion
- In-stream flow requirements adequate to protect biological integrity not yet established
Featured Projects
Fish Passage Restoration — Waiheʻe Stream, Oʻahu
An abandoned water control structure was modified to re-establish native migratory fish and invertebrate populations, coordinated with the USFWS National Fish Passage Program alongside the Key Project, Hui O Koʻolaupoko, Honolulu Board of Water Supply, DLNR-DAR, and USGS.
UH-Hawaiian Internship Program — Fisheries Technician Support
Through USFWS's Fisheries Resources Division, the Hawaiʻi FHP hired a UH Hilo UH-HIP student to assist DLNR-DAR resource managers, surveying benthic substrate and algae as part of a statewide estuary fisheries survey.
Hawaiʻi Statewide Fish Passage Barriers Inventory
A geographic database of migratory fish and invertebrate barriers is under development with the National Aquatic Connectivity Collaborative, drawing on field-verified data from Aquatic Connectivity Teams statewide.
Our impact
Note: the source document flags this section as an infographic to be built from the partnership's Excel tracking file, which wasn't included in the upload — send it over and I'll drop the real numbers in.
Support our work
Every gift helps the Hawaiʻi FHP remove fish passage barriers, restore stream and estuary habitat, and keep native species connected from mountain to reef.
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