| April 18, 2025
One of the largest strongly protected ocean reserves is the latest target of the U.S. administration. While the rest of the world rallies around protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030 to recover wildlife populations and turn the tide on decades of destructive treatment of the ocean, the word from Washington is to double down on environmental degradation.
In an Executive Order signed by the President on April 17th, the administration has rolled back conservation measures restricting commercial fishing in the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument. This order will be challenged in court as another in a string of actions that will likely be found to be unlawful.
The Monument, first designated by President G. W. Bush in 2009 to protect U.S. marine life and the abundant natural resources in the central Pacific and later expanded by President Obama in 2014, represented a bipartisan commitment to protecting our environment and restoring a healthy ocean. These protections, along with Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (NW Hawaiian Islands) have been examples of U.S. leadership in large scale marine protection and a benchmark for other governments to look to and emulate.
The removal of protections around three U.S. territories, from 50 to 200 nautical miles offshore, is claimed as a nod to commercial fishing interests in these areas. However, this Executive Order will not provide any gain for fisheries. In fact, it is likely to further deplete populations that support the fishermen, leading only to a long-term loss of livelihoods and biodiversity. There is only minimal—if any—political gain, while exacerbating long-term setbacks to mitigate the larger biodiversity and climate crises. During the nearly 15 years of protection, no decline in commercial catch has been observed. Together, these zones accounted for just 0.4% and 3.1% of the US purse seine fleet landings in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of American Samoa and these territories prior to 2014. This de minimus amount was easily replaced by the tuna fleet that has consistently reached its quota without accessing the expanded monument in the last decade.
In his first term, the President made no effort to roll back monuments, which are designated by presidents using The Antiquities Act. This act has been used on a bipartisan basis over the years to create both terrestrial and marine monuments to protect important areas of the U.S. for future generations. Now, for the first time, an administration is choosing to reduce the amount of protection instead of expanding it. The current undoing of environmental protections will drop the area of highly protected U.S. Waters by one third and global coverage by 0.3%. We expect the current administration will continue efforts undermine to safeguard the environment.
Through their efforts to isolate the U.S. both economically and strategically, the harm caused by this administration to this country’s former role as a global leader in the environmental movement is dangerous and destabilizing.
We will continue the fight for strong protection of our ocean and the diversity of life that sustains us all.