President Barack Obama will address the conference on Thursday, where he will unveil the designation of a US marine monument off the coast of New England, the White House said.
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Meanwhile, the Global Environment Facility, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Blue Moon Fund and the Waitt Foundation announced $48 million to help developing countries create and expand tropical marine reserves.
“We can not truly protect our planet without protecting our oceans”, Obama said at an worldwide State Department conference on environmental protection for oceans. “We are grateful that the Obama administration has taken a thoughtful approach to designating marine monuments in a way that recognizes the importance of allowing the public to access and enjoy these precious areas”.
Although the lobster and red crab industries can continue to use the area for the next seven years, and recreational fishing will be permitted, some fishermen say that Thursday’s designation will upend the fishing industry in New England. Other commercial fishing operations will get 60 days to transition from the area, officials said. However, those in the fishing industry think it will make it harder for them to earn a living.
“This is deplorable”, said Grant Moore, president of the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association, in describing the designation.
“The unsafe changes in our climate caused mainly by human activity, the dead zones in our oceans cause mainly by pollution we create on land … all those things are happening now, and they’ve been happening for a long time”, Obama said.
But due to criticism from New England’s seafood industry, the Obama administration isn’t planning to phase out all kinds of fishing in the area at once.
On a visit to the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, the president said, “I look forward to knowing that 20 years from now, 40 years from now, 100 years from now, this is a place where people can still come to and see what a place like this looks like when it’s not overcrowded or destroyed by human populations”. “It’s a big blow to us”.
“Our oceans feed us, protect us, regulate our climate, our weather, anchors industries from transportation to tourism to trade of all kind”, said Obama.
Britain’s announcement was made by British Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan, who said fully protected marine reserves are to be set up around the Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific, and St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha and Ascension islands in the South Atlantic. He noted that he had spent his own childhood looking out over the ocean shores and being humbled by the endless expanse.
“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”. “So it’s up to us to adapt, not the other way around”.
“We’re protecting fragile ecosystems off the coast of New England, including pristine underseas canyons and seamounts”, Obama said in an address Thurday at the Our Ocean Conference in Washington D.C. The area is home to rare deep sea corals, endangered whales and some species found nowhere else on the planet.
Today’s designation will protect 4,913 square miles of marine ecosystems with unique geological features that have been the subject of scientific exploration and discovery since the 1970s.
Altogether, countries attending the oceans conference will announce the addition of newsanctuaries covering almost 460,000 square miles of ocean, an area around the size of the nation of South Africa. More Created systems to hold worldwide partners accountable for protecting the environment and coordinating global and enforceable efforts through the Trans Pacific Partnership.
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President Barack Obama has announced the creation of the Atlantic Ocean’s first marine national monument. Conversely, the monument’s canyons delve more than a mile below the ocean floor, and some are even deeper than the Grand Canyon. “Jobs are a priority and the monument boundaries better serve that priority”, Blumenthal said.
