Obama plans to create world’s largest marine protected area

Sean Martin, president of the Hawaii Longline Association, told the Washington Post: “For somebody [environmental organizations] to feel good, we’re going to force usa fishermen out of waters”.

The designation Friday will more than quadruple Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument to protect coral reefs, deep sea marine habitats and ecological resources in the waters off the northwest Hawaiian Islands.

Obama will travel to Hawaii to address the Pacific Island Conference of Leaders Wednesday, and will visit the Midway Atoll in the designated area Thursday.

The expansion will extend the monument’s protections, including a ban on commercial fishing, from 50 miles to 200 miles around the remote island chain.

“We move all over the ocean, in the way the fish move”, said Jim Cook, co-owner of POP Fishing and Marine, adding that the new restrictions mean that 60 percent of federal waters off Hawaii are now closed to fishing.

It was his predecessor, George W. Bush, who established the monument about 10 years ago, but Obama chose to expand on it as part of his push for conservation and climate change issues as his final term wraps up. It encompasses 139,797 square miles of the Pacific Ocean (362,073 square kilometers) – an area larger than all the country’s national parks combined.

A group of Native Hawaiians had first asked Obama in February to consider expanding the monument’s boundary.

This comes as good news to scientists and environmentalists, who have fought for more land to be protected as concerns grow over the state of our planet.

The League of Conservation Voters released a statement saying it “is a great day for our oceans”, and pointing out that Obama “has already protected more land and water than any other president in history”.

The White House said the expansion is a response to a proposal from Democratic Sen. Hawaii’s Department of Natural Resources and Office of Hawaiian Affairs will be trustees for the monument, giving them a say in its management. The Hawaii Longline Association said they haul two million pounds of fish from the designated area annually, the equivalent of $100 million.

Not everyone in the region was in favor of the monument’s expansion.

During his nearly eight years in the White House, Obama has protected more square kilometers (square miles) of land and sea than any other president in the history of the United States. News stories displayed here appear in our category for and are licensed via a specific agreement between LongIsland.com and The Associated Press, the world’s oldest and largest news organization.

Today’s announcement is made by the President under the authority of the Antiquities Act, an authority exercised by 16 presidents starting with President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and used to protect treasures such as the Grand Canyon, the Statue of Liberty, and Colorado’s Canyons of the Ancients.