Voting members of a pacific regional fishery council are saying a proposal by the Obama administration to expand a conservation zone in the Pacific Ocean “will economically harm” fishermen in the area in exchange for “no added conservation benefit.”
The announcement came from voting members of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, one of eight established by the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The voting members represent the state of Hawaii, territories of American Samoa and Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
“Noting that the President himself has declared that the United States “has largely ended overfishing in federally managed waters,” the council members are urging the administration to continue allowing U.S. fishermen into these areas,” the council said in a statement.
President George W. Bush first established the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument in 2009 as a protected area. On 17 June of this year, President Barack Obama announced at the Our Oceans Conference the proposal to enlarge the area to include the entirety of the 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone of seven U.S. Pacific Islands.
While NGOs such as the World Wildlife Fund praised the move, the council said the expansion is
“The areas covered by the Marine Monument are important for the region’s longline and purse seine fisheries, which were already pushed out of valuable fishing grounds with the original 2009 Pacific Islands Remote Marine Monument designation,” the council said in its statement.
