Marine environments are intricately connected with society, providing a backbone to the economy and well-being of human communities. In West Hawai‘i, people dedicated to the region worked together to build a comprehensive understanding of these connections through a series of workshops and surveys. Participants of this study identified the strongest pressures affecting the marine ecosystem, as well as impacts to numerous ecosystem services. Participants perceived that fishing, ocean temperatures, nutrient input, and habitat destruction are the ecosystem pressures that have the strongest impact on the local marine ecosystem. More than half of the 24 identified pressures can be managed locally, rather than globally, presenting an opportunity for local management action. Participants also identified which ecosystem services would be most vulnerable to changes in the ecosystem. The majority of services perceived as highly vulnerable to ecosystem change are intangible, non-material, and can be difficult to count or quantify (frequently referred to as “cultural” ecosystem services). Resource management strategies tend to omit these cultural services, perhaps in part because they can be difficult to count or measure and therefore incorporate. These intangible benefits, however, are critical to human well-being. This study presents a way to apply ecosystem-based management that is both locally-specific and transferable to other locations. Local resource management could use this research as a basis for assessing ecosystem pressures and services that stakeholders specifically identified as influential and important to society.