Glad that you liked our web page. We are still working on it! The Hanauma Bay Educational Program (HBEP) is almost 6 years old. The mission of the program is to enhance appreciation and promote stewardship of Hanauma Bay and Hawaii's marine environment through public education.

I am the Coordinator of Volunteers for the prograrm. There are approximately 80 volunteers that I have to keep track of. I have heen running the entire program fnr the past 16 months! Good news though. the City & County of Honolulu has awarded the program $100, 000 to continue. Great news, but, it only pays for salaries. The new coordinator will have to write proposals for money in order to purchase supplies, which we desperately need! Now to the interesting stuff....Hanauma bay is wonderful and I LOVE working there. The problem is educating the public to respect the Bay - not to use and abuse the place, which a lot of people do. They just do not care. Sad. I did get smoking banned in Oct,1994, which helped a great deal. However, the Bay still has a Iot of pollution. I am presently trying to ban fish feeding entirely, ban walking on the coral (BIG PROBLEM) and get the snack bar moved to the upper level. I sincerely believe that this will eliminate the majority of the trash. Politics are in my way presently. If you have any data about what pollution does to a marine environment please pass it along. I need scientific data! The data that we have is 'partially' scientific. We have seen a change in the variety of fish species at the Bay, the elimination of several alga, and a decrease in several invertebrate species (one being Tripnuestes gratilla). Politicians ask "Where's the scientific data that these changes are due to Hanauma Bay being crowded with tourists?" Can you believe it? Of course it is. Before 1989 the number of visitors to Hanauma Bay were approximately 10, 000/day! In 1990 my Program was started and first thing on the agenda was to decrease the number of People. We did so by monitoring the parking lot (holds 300 cars). As, a result the number of people did decrease to approximately 4500/day. AII that I am allowed to do now is attempt to educate the public via volunteers patrolling the beach and giving free tours. Tours talk about ways visitors can enjoy the Bay while still helping to preserve it, about safety precautions, and fish identification. T'hat's all I have time for, really. However, once I am full time there will he a lot of improvements for the volunteers... hopefully. Besides the HBEP, I develope educational materials on water & boating safety and help coordinate conferences etc...

Got ta go!