U.S. President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak on Thursday at the conference to announce the creation of the first U.S. protected marine area in the Atlantic Ocean, a zone encompassing 12,725 square kilometers (about 4,900 square miles) off the coast of New England.
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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 consists of almost 5,000 square miles including three underwater canyons and underwater mountains.
Last month, Obama expanded a massive reserve off the coast of Hawaii, the world’s largest such protected area, as he works to cement his environmental legacy.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who will also address the conference on Thursday, has made climate change and protecting the ocean a priority during his term, traveling to the Arctic in June to highlight the impact of warming oceans on some of the world’s largest glaciers in Norway and Greenland.
Fishermen worry that it will become harder to earn a living as a result of Obama’s move.
“The more of those threats we eliminate through conservation, the more resilient those ecosystems will be to the consequences of climate change”, said Obama. He said the investments the US and other nations were taking with new marine protected areas were vital for their economy and national security, but “also vital to our spirit”. Also, recreational fishing will be allowed within the monument.
Some of the “seamounts” rise 7,700 feet from the ocean floor, and the crevasses and valleys surrounding them are home to deep sea corals, sharks, puffins, sea turtles and whales.
Borden noted oil tankers will still be able to traverse the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument and telecommunications companies would still be able to lay cable, but fisherman can no longer trawl for crabs, lobsters squid and other delicious seafood. Beyond activities such as mining and drilling, commercial fishing within the borders will be banned immediately, with 60 days to stop operations (lobster and red crab fisheries have seven years).
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Britain was one of the first to show its hand, announcing a plan to double the area of protected ocean around its far-flung overseas territories. “I think the entire New England fishery is upside down over this”. One marine biologist said the wildlife population densities in these areas ‘are like a time machine to the New England of 400 years ago’. And they note, the same presidential authority has been invoked more than a hundred times by some 16 presidents to protect national treasures like the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty. More Created systems to hold worldwide partners accountable for protecting the environment and coordinating global and enforceable efforts through the Trans Pacific Partnership.
