The President has authority to designate national monuments on land and in the ocean through the Antiquities Act.
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Corals off the coast of New England will be protected as part of the newly created Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.
President Barack Obama designated the first USA marine reserve in the Atlantic Ocean: 4,913 square miles (12,724 square km) known for underwater mountains and canyons off the coast of New England.
The new national monument follows Obama’s recent expansion of the huge Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument off Hawaii, and several more countries are expected to declare new reserves. Just as in other “no-take” marine protected areas around the world, the monument is expected to have a positive “spillover effect” that increases the population of popular commercial predator fish species, such as tuna, and that benefits whales and other marine life in the North Atlantic. So if we’re going to leave our children with oceans like the ones that were left to us then we’re going to have to act.
Thanks in part to the strong example set by President Obama and the United States, more than twenty countries attending this week’s Our Ocean Conference will announce the creation of 40 significant new marine protected areas, totaling almost 460,000 square miles of ocean.
A group of about 50 environmental organizations have been lobbying for the marine monument designation for about a year.
“We can not truly protect our planet without protecting our ocean”, the president said, adding that the USA and others had begun to address threats such as climate change and overfishing. A seven year exception will be made, however, for the lobster and red crab industries.
Commercial fishing will be phased out by 2023, but research and recreational fishing will be allowed.
“It is this spectacular ocean wilderness, that has plummeting canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon, undersea mountains taller than anything east of the Rockies, and sublimely handsome deep-sea corals that blossom out of the depths and are as ancient as the redwoods”. Expeditions also have found species of coral found nowhere else on Earth. AP material published by LongIsland.com, is done so with explicit permission.
The newest Marine National Monument was announced by the president at the 3rd annual Our Ocean Conference in Washington D.C. this morning. Other commercial fishing operators will not have to change their practices immediately and will have 60-days to transition from the monument area. In a letter to the President last November, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said that while his administration supports protecting critical marine habitats, he had concerns about the marine monument designation, including whether it would undermine ongoing work with the New England Fishery Management Council.
Their efforts proved persuasive with a president who is also looking to establish his own legacy as a protector of the environment.
More than 300,000 Americans asked the Obama administration to protect this area, and each voice counted in making this dream a reality.
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