December 7, 2017 — Much of the attention to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s review of national monuments has focused on sites across the West, but recommendations he made to President Trump show that a trio of marine monuments could also see significant changes.
In a report Interior released yesterday, Zinke advised that commercial fishing be introduced to three ocean sites: Rose Atoll, Pacific Remote Islands, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts marine national monuments.
Advocates for fishermen cheered the recommendations, asserting the restrictions had created an “economic burden” for their industry.
“The marine monument designation process may have been well intended, but it has simply lacked a comparable level of industry input, scientific rigor, and deliberation,” said New Bedford, Mass., Mayor Jon Mitchell in a statement released by the National Coalition for Fishing Communities.
He added: “That is why I think hitting the reset button ought to be welcomed no matter where one stands in the current fisheries debates, because the end result will be better policy and better outcomes.”
In the report, Zinke criticized restrictions on commercial fishing in the three monuments, discounting the industry’s impact on areas such as the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts near the Massachusetts coast.
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