November 28, 2016 — In the months leading up to the Nov. 8 election, President Barack Obama signed a series of proclamations to dramatically increase the amount of land and water that is federally protected from commercial fishing, mining, drilling and development.
On Aug. 24, he established a nearly 90,000-acre national monument in the Katahdin Woods of Maine.
Two days later, Obama expanded Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands by 283 million acres, making it the world’s largest protected area at the time.
And on Sept. 15, he created the first national monument in the Atlantic Ocean, protecting more than 3 million acres of marine ecosystems, seamounts and underwater canyons southeast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Obama has used a century-old law called the Antiquities Act to federally protect more land — 550 million acres and counting — than any other president. He’s established 24 new national monuments in at least 14 states since taking office eight years ago, with the bulk of the acreage in Papahanaumokuakea and the Pacific Remote Islands.
But with Republican Donald Trump’s surprise upset of Democrat Hillary Clinton, attention is turning to what Trump plans to do when he takes office in January and whether he will seek to undo or at least modify the national monuments that Obama created.
Advocates for commercial fishing interests on the East Coast have started nudging policymakers to consider what changes the next administration could make. But West Coast and Hawaii industry groups are still gathering information and developing plans.
Saving Seafood, a nonprofit that represents commercial fishing interests, has already started pushing policymakers to consider what changes the next administration could make to the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.
Saving Seafood Executive Director Robert Vanasse told the Associated Press earlier this month that he thinks it would be “rational” to allow some sustainable fishing in the monuments.
Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat