The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRFMC) is continuing its push to restore commercial fishing in multiple marine national monuments, directing staff to analyze regulations and submit final recommendations ahead of the council’s March 2026 meeting.
“Pacific Island people are unfairly required to bear the burden of the country’s environmental guilt, and the monuments represent a large inequality in how our peoples are treated,” American Samoa Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources Director and Council Member Nathan Ilaoa said in a release.
The council has largely welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump’s commitment to reopening waters that had been closed to commercial fishing. In April, the president issued a proclamation directing the government to restore commercial fishing access in the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM) – a 400,000-square-mile marine protected area (MPA) in the West Pacific.
“As a result of the prohibitions on commercial fishing, American fishing fleets have lost access to nearly half of the United States’ exclusive economic zone in the Pacific Islands,” Trump said in his proclamation. “This has driven American fishermen to fish farther offshore in international waters to compete against poorly regulated and highly subsidized foreign fleets.”
Commercial fishers in the region have bemoaned the use of MPAs to close off access to lucrative fishing grounds, arguing that regulatory oversight can allow harvesting in the region while taking specific actions to protect marine life when necessary. Trump’s proclamation aligned closely with those claims, stating that NOAA Fisheries and the WPRFMC can manage those fisheries without doing damage.
Just a week after Trump’s proclamation, NOAA Fisheries issued a letter authorizing commercial fishing in the monument.
Three conservation groups – EarthJustice, the Conservation Council for Hawai‘i, and the Center for Biological Diversity – quickly filed suit to block the move, arguing that the agency was acting illegally in unilaterally reopening commercial fishing without going through the proper rulemaking process.
On 8 August, a federal judge vacated NOAA Fisheries’ letter, agreeing with the plaintiffs that the agency could not ignore the regular rulemaking process.
“The court forcefully rejected the Trump administration’s outrageous claim that it can dismantle vital protections for the monument’s unique and vulnerable species and ecosystems without involving the public,” Earthjustice Attorney David Henkin said in response. “The court reaffirmed that, even if President Trump’s directive to allow some commercial fishing in the monument were legal (which we dispute), the Fisheries Service still has the discretion to ban highly destructive practices like longline and purse seine fishing. The court’s order means that the Fisheries Service cannot shirk its duty to ensure adequate protection for the monument.”
Meanwhile, the WPRFMC has moved quickly to reestablish commercial fishing – not only in in the PRIMNM but in multiple monuments – through the normal regulatory process. In September, the council announced that it was working to authorize commercial fishing in PRIMNM, the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument, the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument, and Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
At its 16 December meeting, the council directed staff to conduct analyses and draft Fishery Ecosystem Plan amendment alternatives for the council to review ahead of its March 2026 meeting, where it hopes to take final action.
“Prior to the establishment of the monument in 2009, we stewarded our own waters. With the monument, only the feds are in charge and no one else has a say,” Ilaoa said. “This initiative before the Council provides an opportunity to talk about how the people want to manage their resources rather than being told what to do by the feds.”
However, not every government in the region wants to restore commercial fishing access. In a letter submitted to NOAA Fisheries in October, Hawai’i Governor Josh Green urged the state government to keep the protections in PRIMNM and Papahānaumokuākea in place.
“Maintaining existing protections is essential to preserving biodiversity and healthy fisheries. Studies have proven that highly protected marine areas can generate a ‘spillover effect’ where fish populations increase inside monument boundaries and subsequently migrate into surrounding waters, ultimately strengthening nearby commercial fisheries and supporting long-term economic resilience,” he said.
