US President Barack Obama announced the creation of a new marine reserve on Thursday as Washington hosted a major world summit on protecting the planet’s oceans. The monument, officially named the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, would protect critical ocean habitat around a series of deep-water seamounts and canyons in Georges Bank, about 150 miles southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
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The designation will provide protection for ecological resources and marine species, including deep-sea coral and endangered whales and sea turtles.
Obama said unsafe changes in the climate, dead zones in oceans and unsustainable fishing practices means “were going to have to act and we’re going to have to act boldly”.
The ocean conference, according to the statement, was expected to announce more than “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”.
The White House says it designed the new designation to “recognize the unique role that fishing plays in the region’s economy and culture”. Bob Vanasse, a spokesman for the National Coalition of Fishing Communities, fears that the monument will be totally detrimental to the fishing industry. Recreational fishing will also be allowed within the monument. Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Obama had gone with “more sensible boundary limits to the monument” in seeking to balance environmental goals with economic interests.
Lobster and red crab fisheries have seven years to comply.
Obama’s creation of the national marine monument will be the 27th time he has created or expanded a national monument.
The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument consists of almost 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the New England coast. Its treasures all lie submerged, but they are as stunning as some of our national parks: according to NPR, the area has been called “an underwater Yellowstone”.
The United States on Thursday joined more than 20 countries in creating 40 new marine sanctuaries around the world to protect oceans from the threat of climate change and pollution. Undersea mountains and canyons deeper than Grand Canyon are home to many rare species.
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.
In total, the expedition found over 320 species in the canyons and 630 on the seamounts, though it is unlikely that scientists have mapped the full extent of these ecosystems.
‘Just as wild lands around the globe are beleaguered by human development and climate change, our oceans are under duress today more than ever before, ‘ said Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society.
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But Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of CT said the monument “will protect countless species and habitats from irreversible damage, advance key research, and support critical jobs that depend on healthy oceans”.
