WASHINGTON (AP) President Barack Obama said Thursday that he created the Atlantic Ocean’s first national monument because the planet can not be protected without trying to safeguard its oceans.
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Recreational fishing will be allowed in the new Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument off the MA coast – a big win for the recreational fishing and boating industries as an important marine resource is preserved without public restriction, officials said Thursday morning. The monument will preserve 4,913 square miles of underwater canyons, coral reefs, extinct volcanos, and exotic wildlife that all lie deep below sea level off the coast of MA.
“We will build on those achievements by announcing over 120 significant ocean conservation projects, including nearly $2bn in new pledges and commitments to protect more than two million square kilometres in new or expanded marine protected areas”.
Supporters say the monument will help sustain important species and reduce the toll of climate change, but many in the fishing industry oppose the move. However, those in the fishing industry think it will make it harder for them to earn a living. President Barack Obama said Friday that the violence in Libya “is just one more chapter in the change that is unfolding” across the Middle East and North Africa. The. Officials will allow recreational fishing to continue, but commercial fishing and seabed mining will be banned.
The move, made in an effort to protect the region’s ecosystem, makes the area the first marine national monument in the Atlantic, the Globe reports.
“We’re protecting fragile ecosystems off the coast of New England, including pristine underseas canyons and seamounts”, Obama said during his remarks.
In a proclamation signed Thursday morning, Obama created the “Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument”. Until recently very little was known about it, but the 2013 NOAA Okeanos Explorer expedition found a range of rare and endangered species thriving there that includes 73 corals, some of them over a thousand years old, as well as turtles, whales, dolphins, birds and deep sea fish.
“We don’t normally create laws in this country by the stroke of an imperial pen”, Mr. Vanasse said.
The president will announce Thursday the new marine reserve at an ocean conservation meeting in Washington.
Environmental groups pushed the effort to designate the new monument and said it was as important to be good stewards of the ocean as it was the land and air. Other commercial fishing operators will not have to change their practices immediately and will have 60-days to transition from the monument area. While there he argued for the importance of using his conservation powers to protect vulnerable environments.
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Located about 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod, the Atlantic zone will prevent all drilling and most other development of the area, with exceptions for scientific research and underwater cables.
