Earlier this month Obama traveled to Midway atoll in the Pacific to view the expanded Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, which he quadrupled in size in August.
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“We will build on those achievements by announcing over 120 significant ocean conservation projects, including nearly $2 billion in new pledges and commitments to protect more than two million square kilometers in new or expanded marine protected areas”.
President Barack Obama also designated the first US 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.
And one of the headlines on day one will be Obama’s announcement of the 12 725km² Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.
“We can not truly protect our planet without protecting our oceans”, Obama said at an worldwide State Department conference on environmental protection for oceans. And a week prior, President Obama designated the Katahdin Woods and Waters Monument, safeguarding pristine forested wilderness right in our own backyard in the North Woods of Maine.
Commercial fishing operations will be banned under the new designation, but recreational fishing activity will be allowed to continue.
About 150 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass., lies an ecosystem teeming with puffins, whales, underwater mountains, and fissures “deeper than the Grand Canyon”, reports National Geographic.
Supporters say that roping off large swaths of ocean from human stresses can sustain important species and reduce the toll of climate change.
“Our conservation efforts and our obligations to prevent climate change in fact go hand in hand, because marine areas already have enough to worry about with overfishing and ship traffic and pollution”, Obama said.
The White House says it designed the new designation to “recognize the unique role that fishing plays in the region’s economy and culture”.
Jon Williams, president of the Atlantic Red Crab Co.in MA, says his company will survive, but he tells The Associated Press, “It’s a big blow to us”.
The biggest impact will be to the commercial boats out of New Bedford.
Williams said his company will survive, but the changes created to address some of his concerns don’t sway him about the merits of the monument. “I think there’s a confluence of both our ability to work in these places and then – in real time, or in near real time – distribute these to an interested public”.
Obama said the world was asking too much of its oceans.
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The world community must do more and must do it more quickly, said Kerry at the inaugural session of the 3rd International “Our Ocean” Conference, being held Thursday and Friday in Washington with the participation of representatives of more than 90 countries, along with businessmen and scientists. “Formed millions of years ago by extinct volcanoes and sediment erosion, sea canyons and seamounts are biodiversity hot spots – home to many rare and endangered species”, explains NOAA.
