How fitting end of the week of celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, the US federal agency for the management of national parks and protected areas, President Barack Obama has made an important decision regarding the oceans and established the largest protected area on the planet. A portion of 1.5 million square kilometers in the remote waters of the Pacific, known for the extraordinary marine life that host and their importance in the culture of the Native Hawaiians.
The Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, established in 2006 by President George W. Bush, already stretched for over 360 thousand square kilometers around the uninhabited northwestern Hawaiian islands, in the state that gave birth to President Obama.
Obama has more than quadrupled the size of Papahanaumokuakea, bringing the reserve covers an area of 1.5 million square kilometers, more than all US national parks combined. Leveraging its enforcement authority under the US Antiquities Act has extended a large part of the boundaries of the marine monument -and the commercial fishing ban to his inside-beyond the limit of 320 km
expected from the exclusive economic zone.
Expansion protected marine area
Map of Riley D. Champine, Ng Staff
source: NOAA National Marine Protected Areas Center
As reiterated the governor of Hawaii David Ige, the marine memorial and the fishing ban have sparked a huge debate in the archipelago. But in the end, he added, this expansion “has managed to reach a good compromise for the waters around the Hawaiian Islands, and will become a model of sustainability for the other oceans of the planet”.
Papahanaumokuakea is a sanctuary to many protected species such as blue whales, the Short-tailed albatross, sea turtles and the last monk seals in Hawaii. It is the home of some of the most northerly coral reefs and health of the planet, including those that are most likely to survive in a warming ocean due to climate change.
In these deep ocean, seamounts and sunken islands are home to over 7,000 species, including the oldest animals on Earth: the blacks corals, living here for over 4000 years. More than a quarter of these creatures is endemic, not found anywhere else. Many have yet to be identified, as the little ghost octopus recently discovered and nicknamed “Casper” by scientists.
According to marine biologist Sylvia Earle, explorer-in-residence of National Geographic, the announcement of Obama It brings with it the hope that the United States become the leader for the creation of a new network of marine protected areas, large enough to save and restore the oceans healthy. These “blue parks”, as named by Earle, “are not a luxury, a place to go party. Resilience to climate change is based on having their own large natural protection areas, for biodiversity and for all the elements that give stability to the planet. This is vital to protect the ecological system that keeps us alive. “
The announcement was made a few days before the start of the World Conservation Congress, in which leaders from all over the world gather to discuss protecting the planet.
the great battle for fishing
According to some scientists and conservationists fishing, mining and other types of exploitation should be banned in at least 30% of the oceans to protect marine life and the benefits it brings to humanity. With this expansion, the United States now have some 1,200 marine protected areas covering 26% of sea water, says Lauren Wenzel, director of the National Marine Protected Areas Center of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In most, however, they are permitted fishing or other types of resource extraction. The Papahanaumokuakea expansion increases the portion of the “no-take” (where it is forbidden to extract resources) 3-13% of US marine waters. Almost all, more than 98%, is located in Papahanaumokuakea.
The proposals to protect the latter caskets of biodiversity, like Cashes Ledge in the Gulf of Maine or the canyons and seamounts off the Continental Shelf New England, are very popular. Despite this, until now, in the Atlantic it was not created any marine monument. The power of the New England fishing industry, along with its four centuries of history, makes the company an even more difficult political challenge. To explain it is Kundis Robin Craig, professor of law at the University of Utah, specializing in the oceans. “Part of this expansion protection areas in which to get to such measures is easier,” said Craig, on the enlargement of Papahanaumokuakea.
This difference, along with the impact on Hawaiian fishing fleet longlines, it was the horse of the fishing industry battle against the expansion of the protected area, with advertising on TV and video on YouTube, but also through meetings in town halls and in the capitols of Washington and Honolulu.
In the end, the support of Hawaiian legislators contributed to the decision of the President. US Senator Brian Schatz has, however, achieved a compromise, preventing the extension of the eastern borders of Papahanaumokuakea. Here the fishermen of Kauai and Niihau will continue to work as they always have, within the exclusive economic zone.
Edwin Ebisui Jr., president of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, is not pleased with the compromise. Along with leaders of seven other councils, which manage the regional fishing industry along the US coast, he wrote to President Obama to get permission to continue to manage fisheries as before in all marine monuments created under the Antiquities Act.
But the fishermen with palomito who once fished for tuna in the area that is now part of Papahanaumokuakea, will have to stop. Despite the name of the monument is a tribute to the culture of the Native Hawaiians, who consider sacred the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Ebisui sees the expansion as a blow to that same culture. “For native access to marine resources is extremely important and it always will be,” he said. “I do not see how to quadruple the area where they can not fish is a way to protect their culture.”
“Much of our exclusive economic zone is already off-limits,” he added Ebisui, referring the long series of marine reserves established on the Hawaiian islands and the neighborhood. “Now it seems to be back Hawaiians to pay the price.”
Choose the foresight
Despite the Antiquities Act became law in 1906 thanks a Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt, the modern party not keen to see. So far, Obama has created 25 national monuments, some of which are single buildings. Republican election program this summer led to the meeting of the party, in Cleveland, he wants to change the law so that the establishment of monuments must be approved by both the Congress and the state legislatures.
Yet power Antiquities Act, as explained by historian Douglas Brinkley, author of the environmental background biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, lies in its ability to transcend the industrial or regional influences and protect lands and waters in the interest of all American citizens. “In the last year in office, presidents have to make visionary actions,” says Brinkley. “This is not ‘what I can do in the last year’, but to think about the long term. That is the essence of conservation “.
The Antiquities Act is a short document of one page, which you can read here.
When Congress passed the Antiquities Act, the main objective was to protect the prehistoric sites the south-western United States as mounds and cliff-dwelling, prehistoric dwellings built in natural caves overlooking the canyon. Less than three years later, when it came to an end with the task of Teddy Roosevelt, the President had used his new privilege also to protect 18 national monuments, among which there are iconic landscapes such as Mount Olympus in Washington state and Muir Woods forest in California, as well as various archaeological sites. The Grand Canyon became a protected area thanks to Roosevelt, a decision which found numerous opponents among locals, who considered him an important mining site.
Young Laysan albatross in the lagoon, Midway Islands, protected waters of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument .
Frans Lanting, National Geographic Creative
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