President Barack Obama will be making the announcement Thursday at the Our Ocean Conference in Washington, where according to the White House, he’ll make the case that preserving the swath of water and its underlying mountainous terrain will protect ocean life amid the growing threats of climate change.
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“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.
Last month, President Obama expanded a marine national monument off the coast of Hawaii, creating the world’s largest marine protected area. Fishermen worry it will become harder for them to earn a living as a result of Obama’s move. “Not the other way around”, the president said while adding he remains optimistic that those in the room could rise to the challenge because “these are problems we can solve”.
The European Union has committed to hold a similar conference next year, followed by Indonesia in 2018 and Norway in 2019, Kerry said. Approximately the size of CT, the stretch of water is home to three giant canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon, extinct volcanos, and a rich array of sea life: deep-sea corals, sperm whales, sea turtles, and many other exotic or endangered wildlife teem beneath in those depths, as researchers have found.
The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument situated 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod on the southern edge of George’s Bank, within its boundaries, a recreational fishing will still be permitted.
“He has a place out on Martha’s Vineyard, where truly people appreciate everything we’re here to protect in terms of the ocean”.
Senior White House officials, however, say there will be efforts to mitigate the expected financial impact, including a designated, albeit smaller, area for lobster and red crab companies. He said the investments the USA and other nations were taking with new marine protected areas were vital for their economy and national security, but “also vital to our spirit”.
His moves protecting the New England waters were hailed by environmental groups. Additionally, the canyons and seamounts provide habitat for protected species such as sea turtles and marine mammals, including endangered sperm, fin, and sei whales and Kemp’s ridley turtles. It’s sized about the same as CT, and because of the designation, recreational fishing will be allowed, but commercial fishing won’t be. In sum he’s designated hundreds of millions of acres of land and ocean as national monuments.
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President Obama is still pushing on Friday, July 22, 2011 to “go big” on debt deal even though he is facing resistance from his own party.
