Commercial Fishing Restored In Large Swaths of Pacific and Atlantic
The White House has recently issued a proclamation that “restores access to hundreds of thousands of square miles of Pacific waters for commercial fishing managed under existing federal law.” Objectively, it’s hard not to jump for joy for our hardworking commercial fishing fleets in the Pacific, for whom times, at best, are tough.
On the other hand, conservation, and in some cases preservation, is a necessary if adversarial inevitability, at times, if we want to see our grandchildren to feast their eyes and bellies upon the beauties and delectables our seas have to offer.
Not so long ago in the earlier part of this century, our nation’s fearless leaders took sweeping marine conservation measures over large swathes of the Pacific Ocean, starting in 2006, when President George W. Bush’s Proclamation 8031 established 140,000 square miles surrounding the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands as the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument. In 2009, Bush Deux followed up by establishing the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument (Proclamation 8335) and the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument (Proclamation 8337).
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In 2016, President Obama expanded the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument to nearly 600,000 square miles and renamed it the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. A decade and change can work wonders for a marine habitat, that’s been proven time and again. Look at the incontrovertible successes of Dr. Sylvia Earle’s efforts with Mission Blue and its 170+ hope spots.
But what happens when these protected areas are suddenly opened up with the foresight of, well, sheer blindness? We’re about to find out.
Per or current Commander-in-Chief: “These proclamations imposed restrictions on commercial fishing within specified areas of the monuments. Prior to the establishment of these monuments, the marine resources identified in Proclamations 8031, 8335, 8337, and 9478 were subject to comprehensive Federal management and conservation authorities, including regulations that managed commercial fishing.”
“After further consideration of the nature of the objects identified in Proclamations 8031, 8335, 8337, and 9478 and the protection of those objects already provided by Federal law,” the President continues, “I find that appropriately managed commercial fishing under existing statutory authorities will not put the historic and scientific objects within these areas at risk.”
“I find that certain monument-based prohibitions on commercial fishing are not necessary at this time for the proper care and management of the monuments or the objects of historic or scientific interest therein,” our omniscient, omnipotent fearless leader pontificated last month in a White House press release.
Along the Atlantic seaboard, part of Georges Bank will be reopened to commercial scallop fishing for the first time since they were closed in 1994, and NOAA is currently being directed to prioritize “reviewing fishing rules, permits, and boundaries” off all three U.S. coasts, per Reuters.
And who knows more about our high seas, our resources, our treasures, and our futures within them than he whose idea of quality, responsibly seafood lies within a McDonald’s sandwich? Meanwhile, as we deregulate our own waters, the United States Coast Guard, charged, after all, with policing our fisheries, is, per Operation Blue Pacific, being diverted to defend other nations’ seas, in the South Pacific.
What does this have to do with surfing? Very little, for now, at least. But, again, consider the children: Commercial fishermen make up no small population of our greater surfing communities, and healthy fisheries mean healthy industry for future generations to be able to keep the family stakes on the coastline. It’s a privileged place to be, indeed, and it’s worth thinking twice about succumbing to the allure of larger quotas within fisheries that may or may not be able to withstand any additional bombardment.
Conversely, how would you feel about your children moving inland and slinging fish burgers caught by super trawlers overseas, and for all intents and purposes never to see the ocean, let alone catch a fish or a wave, again?
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