Fishermen, the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (Wespac), StarKist Samoa cannery workers, and multiple U.S. federal and local government officials representing Pacific territories are all pushing back against NOAA’s plans for an expanded marine sanctuary around the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM).
In March 2023, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden proposed the creation of a new marine sanctuary that would protect roughly 770,000 square miles of ocean, which if created, would be the largest marine protected area in the world.
But U.S. Representative Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, representing American Samoa, said at a Wespac meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, the administration has failed to consult or engage with the U.S. Pacific territories on the MPA.
“The president boasted as if this were a designation review that was ending rather than beginning,” Radewagen said. “This action could devastate the economy of American Samoa, where 80 percent of all private sector jobs and exports are related to fishing and canning.”
American Samoa Governor Lemanu Mauga has also come out against the sanctuary.
“American Samoa is repeatedly left out of the conversation of what is best for our communities,” Mauga said. “We are disappointed that actions that could cripple the economy of a U.S. territory would be taken without consultation of its people.”
Guam Governor Lourdes Leon Guerrero and Northern Mariana Islands Governor Arnold Palacios recently penned a joint letter to Biden calling for a meeting to discuss the potential creation of the MPA.
“Further closures of waters around U.S. Pacific Islands would be devastating to the local tuna economy of American Samoa and deprive our Pacific territories of economic development opportunities into the future,” the governors wrote.
More than 1,200 StarKist Samoa cannery workers have also signed a petition opposing the federal proposal, Samoa News reported.
“We urge the [federal] administration to reconsider and reverse this expansion in order to safeguard the American Samoan fishing industry, protect the local economy, and promote sustainable fishing practices,” the worker’s petition states.
Wespac said it received an official proposal for the sanctuary on 23 June, which included a request for assistance in formulating fishing regulations within the MPA. According to Wespac, the proposal would extend the existing protections of existing marine monuments in the area to the entire U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the American Pacific territories, effectively banning commercial fishing by fishermen in all U.S. waters near the islands.
In a letter to NOAA National Ocean Service Assistant Administrator Nicole LeBoeuf, Wespac officially objected to the ban and said prior efforts at creating conservation areas have already hurt the livelihoods of residents in American Samoa.
“The 2014 PRIMNM expansion, together with Kiribati reducing the number of fishing days available to U.S. purse-seiners, and the U.S. government voluntarily giving up 760 high seas fishing days, led to the 2016 closure of one of two canneries in American Samoa,” the letter states. “Recent proposed rulemaking to reduce high seas fishing access for the U.S. purse seine fleet, coupled with further fishing prohibitions in the PRI, would lead to history repeating itself for American Samoa and its last cannery closing down.”
Tuna canneries on American Samoa have had a tumultuous few decades. Chicken of the Sea closed its Pago Pago cannery in 2010 after U.S. Congress passed legislation in 2007 gradually raising the minimum wage for cannery workers. In 2014, Tri Marine International invested USD 70 million (then EUR 57.4 million) into a tuna cannery in American Samoa, only to close operations two years later. Two years later, StarKist signed a 10-year lease with Tri Marine to reopen the plant, but warned that a minimum wage hike could doom operations in the territory.
Wespac’s letter said the marine sanctuary proposal would threaten that last cannery, and that the push to meet Biden’s “30 by 30” goal via the monument places a “disproportionate burden” on U.S. Pacific Island communities. The council pointed out that previous studies claim efforts to reach the “30 by 30” mandate have primarily focused on the U.S. Pacific Islands, which “already account for almost the entire national goal.”
“Tuna fishing and processing have long been an important part of American Samoa's economy, thus the underserved American Samoa community would carry the burden for any perceived benefits of fishing prohibitions in the PRI [Pacific Remote Islands],” the letter states.
The governors of the three territories said fishing closures would run counter to some of the Biden administration’s stated goals regarding equity and environmental justice.
“Fisheries are the leading source of economic development that binds us to our neighboring Pacific Island nations,” they wrote. “Our already disadvantaged and marginalized communities carry a disproportionate burden for meeting national conservation goals.”
Wespac Executive Director Kitty Simonds said the push to prohibit fishing would both be devastating economically and would ignore the long-standing traditions of the islands’ peoples.
"It’s obvious that the ocean belongs only to the federal government and not to its people, and we are merely spectators,” Simonds said.
The council has until 23 December to respond to NOAA’s proposal. The environmental impact statement from NOAA on the sanctuary is expected by August 2024.
Photo courtesy of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council
