Saving Seafood

Should Papahanaumokuakea Be Open For Business?

November 22, 2017 — Republican House members are urging President Trump to “think big” in his ongoing review of 27 national monuments, including opening up the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument not just to commercial fishing — but to oil, gas and mineral exploration.

The Trump administration has been pondering the future of the monuments for months, with a final announcement expected in December.

The proposal to open Papahanaumokuakea to commercial uses came in a Nov. 9 letter from a group of 24 Republicans who are active in the western caucus.

The letter writers want the boundaries of three of the four Pacific reserves —  Pacific Remote Islands, Rose Atoll and Papahanaumokuakea — to be reduced in size and fishing restrictions to be lifted in all of the reserves.

But they only mentioned the possibility of energy extraction for Papahanaumokuakea and the Pacific Remote Islands reserve.

Problem is, there is no oil and gas development potential at Papahanamokuakea. The fight in Hawaii has been over whether to loosen commercial fishing restrictions in the monument

“It’s not applicable,” said William Aila Jr., former chairman of the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources who’s now deputy director of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. “There is no oil or gas at Papahanaumokuakea.”

He said the only possible resource of that kind is something known as “manganese nodules,” metallic minerals found in rock-like formations in deep water on the seabed. But Aila said that it is so costly and difficult to obtain minerals in such remote locations that it is more “futuristic” than a viable economic opportunity.

Read the full story at the Honolulu Civil Beat

 

Obama to Designate New National Monuments; Atlantic Monument Still Under Consideration

February 12, 2016 — The following is an excerpt from a story by Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post White House bureau chief, who addresses new national monuments to be declared this week, and mentions possibilities for additional designations before the end of the Obama Administration including New England corals, canyons, and seamounts, and an expansion of Papahanaumokuakea in the Pacific.

“We have big, big ambitions this year, so let’s see what happens,” said Christy Goldfuss, managing director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, adding that the administration is focused on “local requests for action. It’s really been driven by activities on the ground.

The big question: What next?

Other possible future designations include Bears Ears, a sacred site for several Native American tribes in southeastern Utah; Stonewall, the site of a 1969 inn riot by members of New York City’s gay community; the New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts; the historic headquarters of the National Woman’s Party, Sewall-Belmont House in Washington, D.C.; and Nevada’s Gold Butte, an area where rancher Cliven Bundy and his supporters have defied federal authorities.

It is less clear what Obama will do in federal waters, where nearly all of the strict protections are in the central Pacific. There are a group of Hawaiians lobbying the president to expand Papahanaumokuakea – a monument George W. Bush created a decade ago, whose islands and atolls are home to 1,750 marine species found nowhere else on Earth – to the full extent under the law. That would make it 520,000 square miles, or nine times its current size.

“Some people here are working here to provide the president with a legacy opportunity,” said William Aila Jr., looking down from a rocky outcropping in Oahu as two endangered Hawaiian monk seals nestled below. “It would be the largest marine protected area for a long, long time. It would be almost impossible to top it.”

Read the full story at the Washington Post