Tag Archives: Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument
NOAA’s Sanctuary Expansion Proposal: ‘The nail in the coffin’ of American Samoa’s tuna industry
A regional fishery council warned that the Biden administration’s plan to block off the U.S territorial waters in the Pacific would be the end of American Samoa’s tuna canning industry and quash the culture which the federal government claims to protect. While commercial fishing is currently allowed within 50 to 200 miles of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency’ssanctuary expansion proposal would completely cover the U.S exclusive economic zone, prohibiting commercial fishing by U.S fishermen in U.S waters. “For more than 30 years, American Samoa-based purse seiners and Honolulu-based longliners operated in the waters of the Pacific Remote Islands Area until the establishment of the PRIMNM in 2006,” the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council said. “This new action will force U.S purse seiners to fish farther away from Pago Pago Harbor and transport their catch to Mexico and Ecuador instead of the StarKist Samoa cannery, which serves as the backbone of American Samoa’s economy,” the council added.>click to read< 15:45
The High-Stakes Battle Over Obama’s Atlantic Ocean National Monument
Mining and drilling for oil are already banned in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, established by former president Barack Obama in 2016 as the first marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean, 150 miles off the coast of Cape Cod. Within five years, too, all commercial fishing will be phased out – or, at least that was the plan. A federal judge is now weighing the fate of those protections in a lawsuit originally filed in March 2017 by a coalition of New England fishing groups – and it has led to a rare case of President Donald Trump defending his predecessor’s authority. >click to read<10:27
President Trump to make decision on monuments by April 16
President Donald Trump has until April 16th to either follow his Interior secretary’s recommendations to relax fishing restrictions in marine monuments key for American Samoa and Atlantic coast fishermen or let a court challenge to the monuments proceed. A federal court has agreed to allow Atlantic fishermen and lobstermen to proceed with a lawsuit that seeks to reverse Obama-era protections for the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument off the New England coast. But the case could have a direct bearing on when or how American Samoa’s tuna industry gets relief from fishing restrictions in the Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll marine monuments. >click to read<16:02
Zinke tells Trump – Shrink at least 4 national monuments and modify a half-dozen others
The secretary’s set of recommendations also would change the way all 10 targeted monuments are managed. It emphasizes the need to adjust the proclamations to address concerns of local officials or affected industries, saying the administration should permit “traditional uses” now restricted within the monuments’ boundaries, such as grazing, logging, coal mining and commercial fishing.,, The White House is reviewing the recommendations and has not reached a final decision on them. click here to read the story 08:58
At Asia-Pacific summit, Kerry gives wrong advice for world’s fisheries
But Secretary Kerry gets some key facts wrong here. For one, most of the fisheries of the world are not overfished. In 2014, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) placed that number at 29 percent, and reported that approximately 70 percent of the stocks that they assessed were being fished within biologically sustainable levels. If the U.S. is going to promote sustainability worldwide, it should acknowledge current management successes. Read the rest here 12:35
Conservationists Spar With Fishermen Over World’s Largest Marine Monument
From the article: “It is very likely that the canneries would go away if the proposed monument expands,”, “they are getting squeezed” by increasing regulations and competition from Asia. Monica Medina, the senior director of International Ocean Policy for National Geographic, says the debate over whether to expand the monument really should not hinge on a cost-and-benefit analysis to fisheries. Read the rest here 15:17:34
Podesta, White House warned about Pew ocean preserve expansion to combat ‘climate change’
John Podesta, the Obama administration’s climate and energy czar, got a blunt warning this week that a plan to cut off all fishing in a huge, U.S.-controlled tract of the Pacific Ocean would have devastating economic effects in the region, and would cede geopolitical advantages to China and other Pacific powers., Federal officials did not allow the session to be filmed Read the rest here 19:31 PEW “CONFIDENTIAL BACKGROUND DOSSIER Here
Fishing in murky waters: the administration’s secretive oceans policies come under fire
The Obama administration is using its “phone and pen” method of governing by executive action to push its agenda and extend its powers in a huge new area: the Pacific Ocean. American fishermen are reacting with skepticism, concern and frustration at the latest murky steps to prevent fishing in vast tracts of the Pacific. Read more here 18:22
Obama’s Pacific no-fish zone questioned
A United States fishery scientist says the US President’s vow to dramatically increase a no-fishing zone in the Pacific is nothing more than a gesture. “It will have no conservation benefit on tunas and other highly migratory species. They move about so if they’re not subject to fishing mortality in one area, they may be in another. And we just don’t see this as anything more than really sort of being a gesture more than anything else.” Read more here 19:50
