President Obama created the first marine monument in U.S. Atlantic waters today, adding New England’s Coral Canyons and Seamounts to the long list of lands and seas he has protected during his administration. Obama’s move to designate the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, just weeks after he massively expanded another ocean monument off the coast of Hawaii, is part of a larger worldwide push for marine conservation.
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“We’re phenomenally excited”, says environmental activist Brad Sewall of the Natural Resources Defense Council, who says the underwater wilderness is unexploited by commercial fishing, mining or drilling. “He has led negotiations at the United Nations for high seas marine protected areas, proactively involved the U.S.in the fight against Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing, and expanded the Papahanaumokuakea National Marine Monument to become the largest fully protected marine area in the world, just to name a few”.
“Today, more than a century after Teddy Roosevelt began a legacy of protecting America’s special places, President Obama has taken the baton and carried it to new heights”, Conservation Law Foundation president Bradley Campbell said in a statement, as reported by the State House News Service.
The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument protects fragile deep-sea ocean ecosystems in some of the most extreme undersea terrain in U.S. Atlantic Waters.
Senior administration officials say the same presidential authority has been invoked more than a hundred times by some 16 presidents to protect national treasures like the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty. Most of these designations have put federal waters under increased protection, according to the Post. Ed Markey says he appreciates the seven-year delay for lobstermen and fishermen, but says he’s “concerned” that impacts on the fishing industry were “not fully minimized”. The Gulf of ME is warming at a rate faster than nearly any other ocean area in the world, and this monument will provide areas where biodiversity and marine life can continue to thrive; it will also provide an area for scientists to study climate change and possible strategies to better protect the ocean’s living resources against climate impacts.
While environmentalists celebrated the decision, the fishing industry has not reacted quite as warmly.
Jon Williams, president of the Atlantic Red Crab Company in MA, says his company will survive but he tells The Associated Press, “It’s a big blow to us”. “Just set the boundaries deep enough so the fishing can continue”.
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Rhode Island’s congressional delegation recognizes this decision will create an important sanctuary for marine life. They say input from the fishing industry, regulators and other stakeholders resulted in key compromises. “He has a place out on Martha’s Vineyard, where truly people appreciate everything we’re here to protect in terms of the ocean”. Scientific expeditions to this region have yielded new discoveries including species of coral found nowhere else on Earth and other rare fish and invertebrates. “It used to be most of the ocean was a marine reserve, because we couldn’t access it”.
