Clearing the waters of fishpond restoration Clearing the waters of fishpond restoration Hawai'i's ancient fishponds are among the islands' greatest coastal resources - but they're being held hostage by apathy and bureaucratic procedure. That's according to Joseph Farber, the keynote speaker at MOP's 10th Annual Symposium on Maritime Archaeology and History of Hawai'i and the Pacific last month.
Hawaiian aquaculture is unique in the world.
Before Western contact, it's estimated there were as many as 488 ponds statewide, producing nearly 2 million pounds a year. But with the arrival of the Europeans, the ponds were abandoned. The Mahele of 1848 saw many of the pond lands go into state or private ownership. Some were converted for rice cultivation. Many have been filled in to make way for urban sprawl.