Obama: Oceans key to protecting planet from climate change

In tandem with President Obama’s designation of the new Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, Dr. Robert Ballard sent the below message to the White House email list.

“We can not truly protect our planet without protecting our ocean”, said the president at the 2016 Our Ocean Conference.

“If we are going to leave our children with oceans like the ones that were left to us, then we’re gonna have to act and we are going to have to act boldly”, President Obama said at the Our Ocean Conference at the State Department on Thursday.

“Dangerous changes in our climate, caused mainly by human activity; dead zones in our ocean, caused mainly by pollution that we create here on land; unsustainable fishing practices; unprotected marine areas, in which rare species and entire ecosystems are at risk – all those things are happening now”, the U.S. president said. Beyond activities such as mining and drilling, commercial fishing within the borders will be banned immediately, with 60 days to stop operations (lobster and red crab fisheries have seven years). The organizations that partnered to develop it, which include the marine-advocacy group Oceana and West Virginia-based nonprofit SkyTruth, say the free platform will help governments, journalists and everyday citizens monitor roughly 35,000 commercial fishing vessels almost in real time. It boasts massive undersea canyons as well as seamounts, towering underwater peaks that are higher than any mountains east of the Rockies, rising as much as 7,700 feet from the ocean floor.

About 100 miles southeast of Cape Cod, the 5000 square mile pristine area protects 1000-year-old deep sea corals, endangered whales and sea turtles and deep sea fish like tuna and sharks. Expeditions have found species of coral found nowhere else on earth.

“Our members are disappointed, angry and feel somewhat betrayed”, said Bob Vanasse, a spokesman for the National Coalition for Fishing Communities.

In October, NOAA will release a Climate Science Regional Action Plan for the Northeast, which will help regional fishery management councils manage fisheries that are changing with climate change.

Environmental groups pushed the effort to designate the new monument and said it was as important to be good stewards of the ocean as it was the land and air. He said fishermen are fearful this is the first of future designations.

Their efforts proved persuasive with a president who is also looking to establish his own legacy as a protector of the environment.

To explore the United States’s newest national monument, you’re going to need a boat – or at least, some kind of device that keeps you afloat oceanic waters. Obama noted that he has protected more land and water through monument designations than any president in history.

As Pew Charitable Trusts – which applauded the announcement – notes, the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument differs from other marine monument designations as it is located offshore from highly populated cities.

Obama addressed the first day of the Our Ocean conference, where ministers and envoys from some 90 countries met with environmental experts to announce conservation measures.