Secretary of State John Kerry, who is hosting the ocean conference, said in a statement, “By protecting ecologically sensitive areas of our ocean, the United States is leading on an issue that is important to people on every continent because of the ocean’s connection to food security, shared prosperity and resiliency in the face of climate change”.
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And they heard Obama’s announcement of the 4,913-square-mile (12,725-square-kilometer) Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.
President Barack Obama on Thursday designated the first U.S. marine reserve in the Atlantic Ocean: 12,724 sq km known for underwater mountains and canyons off the coast of New England.
Supporters of the new monument say protecting large swaths of ocean from human stresses can sustain important species and reduce the toll of climate change.
Fishermen worry that it will become harder to earn a living as a result of Obama’s move.
US Senator Richard Blumenthal will share the details of the first-ever Marine National Monument in the Atlantic on Friday.
“My administration has protected more waters than any in history”.
This is an area in the Atlantic off the coast of New England with three deep undersea canyons and five submerged mountains, home to rare deep-sea coral and whales.
Williams, owner of the Atlantic Red Crab Company in New Bedford, doesn’t know what his next steps will be.
The move is created to permanently protect almost 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the coast of New England.
“As a global community we must protect and value vital ecosystems rather than treating the oceans as an endless resource to be exploited and as a dumping ground for our waste”, DiCaprio said.
“The creation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is a victory for conservation that will have positive impacts that reach far beyond the monument’s boundary”, said David Houghton, President of the National Wildlife Refuge Association.
“In New England, we have one of the most highly regulated fishing industries in the world, and we have had a steady decline in the amount of area available to fish, and it should be a last resort to take away more area as opposed to trying to carefully draw the lines of this monument area”, Tarr told the News Service.
Obama said the world was asking too much of its oceans. Expeditions also have found species of coral found nowhere else on earth.
Altogether, countries attending the oceans conference will announce the addition of newsanctuaries covering almost 460,000 square miles of ocean, an area around the size of the nation of South Africa.
SMITH: Senior administration officials say to mitigate the financial harm, they’re designating a smaller area than planned, and they’re giving lobster and red crab fisheries a seven-year grace period before they have to comply.
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The Academy Award-winning actor gave the keynote address at the 2016 Our Ocean conference in Washington on Thursday.
