Obama creates world’s largest marine refuge
President quadruples protected waters off Hawaii in bid to help 7,000 species, fragile ecosystem.
President Barack Obama on Friday expanded a national monument off the coast of Hawaii, creating a safe zone for tuna, sea turtles and thousands of other species in what will be the world’s largest marine protected area.
Obama’s proclamation quadrupled in size a mon- ument originally created by President George W. Bush in 2006. The Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument will contain some 582,578 square miles, more than twice the size of Texas.
The president is slated to travel to the monument next week to mark the new designation and cite the need to protect public lands and waters from climate change. The president was born in Hawaii and spent much of his childhood there.
In expanding the monument, Obama cited its “diverse ecological communities” as well as “great cultural significance to the Native Hawaiian community and a connection to early Polynesian culture worthy of protection and under- standing.”
The monument designa- tion bans commercial fishing and any new mining, as is the case within the existing monument.
Recreational fishing will be allowed by permit, as will be scientific research and the removal of fish and other resources for Native Hawaiian cultural practices.
The regional council that manages U.S. waters in the Pacific Islands voiced disappointment with Obama’s decision, saying it “serves a political legacy” rather than a conservation benefit.
The council recommends catch limits and other steps designed to sustain fisheries. It said it recommended other expansion options that would have minimized impacts to the Hawaii longline fishery, which supplies a large portion of the fresh tuna and other fish con- sumed in Hawaii.
“Closing 60 percent of Hawaii’s waters to commer- cial fishing, when science is telling us that it will not lead to more productive local fisheries, makes no sense,” said Edwin Ebiusi Jr., chairman of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council.
“Today is a sad day in the history of Hawaii’s fisheries and a negative blow to our local food security.”
The Pew Charitable Trusts, which helped lead the push to expand the monument, said research shows that very large, fully protected marine reserves are necessary to rebuild fish populations and diversity of species.