According to the White House, the plan is to expand Hawaii’s Papahānaumokuākea (Papa-ha-now-mow-koo-ah-kay-ah) Marine National Monument so that it will cover approximately 582,578 square miles (1.5 million square kilometers) of land and sea – about 50 times bigger than the land area of the Hawaiian Islands.
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PMNM was originally established in 2006 by then-President George W. Bush as the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, and the name was updated the following year.
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A massive sponge photographed at a depth of about 7,000 feet in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument off the shores of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
Obama’s expansion of the Papah?naumoku?kea Marine National Monument will more than quadruple its existing size, protecting reefs, marine life habitats and other resources. It will be Obama’s 26th creation or expansion of a national monument.
Administered jointly by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the State of Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources, Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument enCompasses two national wildlife refuges: Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge and the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge. But preserving public space from development has been something Obama can do using his own power, and he had moved to permanently protect more than 265 million acres of land and water even before the expansion in Hawaii. “All told”, the White House said, the “area serves as a final resting place for the more than 3,000 people lost during the battle”. Species of special significance to Native Hawaiians, like ‘opihi, a Hawaiian limpet which grazes on algae, and other species that prey on plankton and crustaceans, will also see their sources of food decline.
Banned from the protected area will be the exploitation of any and all resources, whether through commercial fishing or the mining of minerals, though native populations may continue fishing with special permits.
“Closing 60 percent of Hawaii’s waters to commercial fishing, when science is telling us that it will not lead to more productive local fisheries, makes no sense”, Council Chair Edwin Ebiusi Jr. said in the statement.
“Additionally, within the monument expansion area, there are shipwrecks and downed aircraft from the Battle of Midway in World War II, a battle that marked a major shift in the progress of the war in favor of the Allies”.
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The president will announce the new designation on Wednesday in Hawaii at the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) World Conservation Congress. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who helped broker a compromise proposal with groups including native Hawaiians and day-boat fishermen. He said the monument’s expansion would be based on political and not scientific reasons.
