Saving Seafood

NOAA to bring new research ship to Hawaii with $200M in federal funding

February 12, 2020 — A new ocean research ship is heading to Hawaii after more than $200 million in federal funding has been secured for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz.

NOAA announced Tuesday that it is acquiring two new ocean research ships, one of which will be homeported in Honolulu. The Oceanographer is expected to replace NOAA Ship Hiialakai, which retired early due to extensive corrosion.

The new ships will continue to support NOAA’s missions of ocean research, marine life exploration, and climate and ocean ecosystem studies.

“These new ships will make sure NOAA can continue to do the critical research work we need to protect our oceans and Hawaii’s natural resources, including Papahanaumokuakea,” said Schatz, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Star Advertiser

Interior, Commerce Departments Seek Comments in Marine Monuments Review

May 8, 2017 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Department of the Interior announced Friday the public would be allowed to weigh in on several monument designations made under the Antiquities Act — including several marine monuments.

The Department of Commerce, in consultation with the Department of Interior, will review public comments related to marine monuments, all but one of which are in the Pacific Ocean. This action is related to President Trump’s executive order 13795, relating to offshore energy and monuments review.

The marine monuments slated for review include:

  • Marianas Trench, listed in 2009, at 61 million acres, in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands/Pacific Ocean;
  • Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, listed in 2016 at 3.1 million acres, in Atlantic Ocean;
  • Pacific Remote Islands, listed in 2009 at 56 million acres;
  • Papahanaumokuakea, listed in 2006 and expanded in 2016 at 89.6 million acres, in Hawaii/Pacific Ocean; and
  • Rose Atoll, listed in 2009 at 8.6 million acres, in American Samoa/Pacific Ocean.

A public comment period is not required for monument designations under the Antiquities Act; however, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and President Trump both strongly believe that local input is a critical component of federal land management, Zinke said in a press release Friday.

“The Department of the Interior is the steward of America’s greatest treasures and the manager of one-fifth of our land. Part of being a good steward is being a good neighbor and listening to the American people who we represent,” Zinke said in the statement. “Today’s action, initiating a formal public comment process finally gives a voice to local communities and states when it comes to Antiquities Act monument designations. There is no pre-determined outcome on any monument. I look forward to hearing from and engaging with local communities and stakeholders as this process continues.”

In making the requisite determinations, the secretary is directed to consider the requirements and original objectives of the Antiquities Act, including the size of the monument; whether the areas are appropriately classified as landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures or other objects of historic or scientific interest; the effects of a designation on the available uses of the areas; the effects of designation on the use and enjoyment of non-federal lands within or beyond the monument boundaries; the concerns of state, tribal and local governments, including the economic development of affected states, tribes and localities; and the ability of federal resources to properly manage designated areas.

Comments may be submitted online after May 12 at http://www.regulations.gov by entering “DOI-2017-0002” in the Search bar and clicking “Search,” or by mail to Monument Review, MS-1530, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20240.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission. 

Trump Targets National Monuments, Including Papahanaumokuakea

April 26, 2017 — President Donald Trump is ordering a review of the designations for more than two dozen national monuments, including ecologically rich marine preserves in the Pacific such as Papahanaumokuakea, Marianas Trench and the Pacific Remote Islands.

Through an executive order he is expected to sign Wednesday, Trump will instruct Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to engage in a sweeping review of many national monuments created by presidential proclamation since 1996.

The Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which was dramatically enlarged by President Barack Obama last summer despite the opposition of the local fishing industry, would be included in the review. Opponents of Obama’s decision have taken their complaints to Washington.

In a Tuesday press briefing held at the White House and by telephone with reporters around the country, Zinke said he has been asked to evaluate the monuments created in the past 20 years that encompass more than 100,000 acres to see whether local communities should be given additional input into their scope and restrictions.

He said he would look specifically at monuments that have been made off-limits to what he called “traditional uses,” such as farming, ranching, timber harvesting, mining, oil and gas exploration, motorized recreation and fishing. An important criteria would be whether jobs were created or eliminated by the monuments, he said.

Zinke estimated 24-40 monuments were likely to come under review.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat 

RAY HILBORN: Obama’s new ocean preserves are bad for the environment and for people

October 6th, 2016 — Who wants to save the oceans? Short answer: everyone, especially politicians. A less frequently asked question is whether their high-profile efforts always work.

Right now, world leaders seem to want to see who can declare the biggest marine protected areas, or MPAs, in their territory. MPAs are kinds of national parks for sea life that extends from ocean surface to ocean floor. Commercial fishing and other undersea ventures are banned in them.

They are popping up everywhere. In August, President Obama announced one in the western Pacific Ocean that is 50 per cent bigger than Texas. In September he created another, more modest one off the coast of New England.

Britain announced yet another MPA in September around St. Helena Island in the south Pacific. It is half the size of the Lone Star State.

In fact, the MPA movement has become a religion with accepted articles of faith that more and bigger are better.  This current obsession is bad for the oceans, bad for the global environment, and bad for people.

Consider what the imposition of an MPA can do to the economy and livelihood of local fishers, who are unable to easily pick up and move elsewhere. Some fishermen in New England are warning that they could go out of business as a result of the new Atlantic marine preserve.

Large MPAs are also bad for people because reducing ocean fish production by itself will mean less high quality, nutritious food available for the poorest people in the world and less employment for fishing-dependent communities

Political leaders argue they are protecting the oceans with MPAs, but mostly they aren’t. The major threats to ocean health and biodiversity, including global warming, ocean acidification, oil spills, floating masses of plastics, pollutant run-off from land, and illegal fishing–all are not addressed by this conservation measure.

Read the full opinion piece at Fox News 

Alaska lawmakers on guard for new marine national monuments

September 26, 2016 — WASHINGTON — Alaska lawmakers are on the lookout for potential presidential decrees that could block fishing and drilling in the state’s ocean waters.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski and others have introduced legislation that they hope might stop future presidents from using a 110-year-old law — the Antiquities Act — to carve out lands and waters for new environmental protections. But the chance for new federal legislation to curb executive powers during President Barack Obama’s term has all but passed.

Now, with Obama’s recent expansion of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine Monument in Hawaii and designation of the first-ever marine monument on the East Coast, worries about a surprise Alaska announcement have arisen again.

“It seems like we read about a new designation every week — that’s probably an exaggeration, but it just seems like that,” Murkowski said Thursday. The Obama administration has used the 1906 Antiquities Act “as a tool to both sidestep and threaten Congress,” Murkowski said.

“I don’t have anyone in my office talking about monuments in Alaska,” Neil Kornze, who heads the Bureau of Land Management, assured Murkowski at a hearing Thursday.

“I can’t tell you what the president is or isn’t thinking, but in terms of my interaction with these issues, I’m not aware” of any potential new monuments in the making, he said.

Asked by Murkowski if he was aware of any “conversations outside of your particular office where there is discussion about designation, either onshore- or offshore-monument designation in Alaska,” Kornze said “no.”

Read the full story at the Alaska Dispatch News