President Biden Restores Commercial Fishing Ban at Marine National Monument
By Mark J. Palmer
On October 8, 2021, President Joe Biden restored a ban on commercial fishing in the Northeastern Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, established by President Obama in September 2016.
In June 2020, President Donald Trump, by far the most anti-environmental president in the modern era, lifted the ban on commercial fishing in the Marine National Monument off the coast of New England.
Trump held a press conference to announce the renewed exploitation of fish surrounded by lobster traps and buoys, along with fishing industry representatives. Incredibly, after the press conference, the industry fishers claimed they were not interested in fishing in the Monument, which lies far offshore, but rather were seeking support from Washington for the collapse of the lobster and crab market due to COVID closures of restaurants.
At the same meeting, Trump threatened to open several Pacific Ocean Monuments to commercial fishing. The International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) of Earth Island Institute, working with the environmental legal programs of the University of California at Berkeley and Irvine, was prepared to sue the Trump administration had they gone forward with the lifting of commercial fishing bans in the Pacific. Fortunately, the administration never followed up on the threat.
President Biden also restored the boundaries, originally set by President Obama but gutted by Trump, for the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, among other things, prohibiting mining and oil drilling in these wilderness monuments in Utah.
“This may be the easiest thing I’ve ever done so far as president — I mean it″, Biden joked.
“There’s nothing like it in the world,” Biden said of the marine monument, citing its “unique biodiversity″ and “waters teeming with life, with underwater canyons as deep as parts of the Grand Canyon (and) underwater mountains as tall as the Appalachians. Marine scientists believe that this is a key to understanding life under the sea.”
Commercial fishing can have harmful impacts on the marine environment, especially over-fishing, gillnetting, bottom trawling, and shark finning. Protecting the marine national monuments, including those in the Pacific, are important steps towards better protection for fish, corals, and marine mammals like whales and dolphins.
IMMP and our fellow environmentalists celebrated the steps taken by President Biden. Earlier in the year, IMMP had sent the president a letter urging him to take action to restore the fishing ban at the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.
Our thanks to the faculty and students with the Environmental Law Clinics at UC Berkeley and UC Irvine for standing with us against weakening the marine national monuments in the Pacific Ocean, some of the largest marine protected areas in the world.
IMMP continues to press President Biden and Congress to take further steps to protect our oceans.
What You Can Do:
Send a letter or email to President Biden, thanking him for restoring the ban on commercial fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, and encourage him to take further steps to protect our oceans, including addressing climate change, ending offshore oil drilling, and pushing for restrictions on plastics.
President Joseph Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500
Thanks to your support, the International Marine Mammal Project was able to work with lawyers to closely follow the actions of the Trump administration and help block some of his worst proposals, such as opening up the Pacific marine national monuments to bottom trawling, shark finning, and entangling nets. Your support is critical to our success. Please donate to continue our work to encourage the Biden administration to increase protections for our oceans. Thank you!
