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Before leaving office, former president George W. Bush designated three marine monuments - essentially, wilderness parks of the sea - in the Pacific Ocean, protecting them from oil exploration and commercial fishing. The monuments are located around the Marianas Trench (the deepest point in the earth's oceans), the Pacific Remote Islands, and the Rose Atoll. NRDC Oceans Initiative director Sarah Chasis turned a critical eye on the merits of these protected areas in her Switchboard blog post "Bush's New Marine Monuments: The Good, the Bad and Next Steps."
GOOD
- He picked worthy sites that include unique ocean features like the Mariana Trench and areas of rich biological diversity, such as pristine coral reefs, numerous species of seabirds, shore birds, ocean fish, as well as endangered sea turtles and whales.
- Commercial fishing is prohibited within 50 nautical miles of the islands and atolls.
BAD
- The protected areas extend only 50 nautical miles from shore rather than out to the limits of U.S. jurisdiction, which is 200 nautical miles.
- While the Mariana Trench itself received protection, the executive order only conserves the area from the rim of the trench to its deepest part, not the rim of the trench to the ocean surface. Thus portions of the ocean waters above the trench and the wildlife within those waters are left unprotected.
WHAT CAN OBAMA DO TO FIX IT?
- The monuments should be fully protected and the areas expanded to include ocean waters out to 200 nautical miles.
- To get the benefits marine protected areas have to offer as centers of productivity and resilience, the incoming administration should [create] a national network of marine protected areas.
- We [NRDC] are looking to the new administration to truly end overfishing, to be international leaders on controlling destructive fishing practices like bottom trawling, and to clean up ocean dead zones.
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