Twice the size of Texas, at 582,578 total square miles, the expanded monument is now the largest marine protected area on the planet.
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Any type of commercial extraction activities like commercial fishing, deep sea mining will be completely prohibited in the expanded monument.
The White House also announced that Obama would travel to the region next week, visiting the landmark Midway Atoll at the western edge of the area to address the threat of climate change and the importance of protecting public lands and waters.
In 2006, the monument was first designated by President George W. Bush as the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, and later its name was changed honoring Papahanaumoku and Wakea.
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Native Hawaiians urged for the monument’s expansion back in January and consider the place a “the boundary between Ao, the world of light and the living, and Pō, the world of the gods and spirits from which all life is born and to which ancestors return after death”, according to the White House.
Under the law, the president can designate as national monuments any federal lands containing objects of “historic or scientific interest”.
Commercial fishing and other resource extraction activities, which are now prohibited in the boundaries of the existing monument, are also prohibited within the expanded monument boundaries.
Hawaii’s elected leaders praised the move.
The White House said this “protected area – together with the neighboring Baxter State Park to the west – will ensure that this large landscape remains intact, bolstering the forest’s resilience against the impacts of climate change”.
More than 7,000 species call the reserve’s waters home.
“We continue to discover species new to science every time we visit this incredible area”, said the Bishop Museum’s Richard Pyle, a well-known scientist in the islands who has helped document the wildlife in the monument for over thirty years.
The League of Conservation Voters released a statement saying it “is a great day for our oceans”, and pointing out that Obama “has already protected more land and water than any other president in history”.
The Council’s resolution also requests that the USA government address the resources and tools needed to effectively manage and administer an expanded monument and to specify the technical, scientific, and socioeconomic costs and benefits from monument expansion on marine resources, residents of Hawaii, and the nation.
With Friday’s action, a total of seven presidents – starting with Theodore Roosevelt in 1909 – have taken steps to safeguard part of the archipelago, which is one of the most biologically diverse areas of the world.
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Several Republicans have accused Obama in recent years of abusing his authority under the Antiquities Act, which instructs any protections to “be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected”. “The Legislature passed a resolution opposing a National Monument in the North Woods, members of Maine’s Congressional delegation opposed it and local citizens voted against it repeatedly”.
