Donald Trump signed a decree on Thursday June 11 aimed at reauthorizing commercial fishing in three marine sanctuaries in the Pacific, after shattering restrictions protecting other areas recognized for their great biodiversity and the fragility of their ecosystem.
“With today’s action, we are officially reopening more than 1.2 million square kilometers of water located around the northwest islands of Hawaii, the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa,” the Republican president said from the Oval Office. That’s an area almost twice the size of Texas.
Its reopening to commercial fishing will “reduce the cost of seafood and generate millions and millions of dollars in new revenue for our great fishermen,” he proclaimed.
An openly climate skeptic president
This reauthorization is far from the first: since his return to the White House, Donald Trump has unraveled numerous environmental standards and lifted similar restrictions for a reserve in the Atlantic and for the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, a vast sanctuary located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The latter was created in early January 2009 by President George W. Bush then largely expanded in 2014 by his successor Barack Obama and is home to virgin coral reefs as well as numerous endangered species, including seabirds and certain sharks and whales.
The Republican, openly climate skeptic, assumes he is pursuing a policy of deregulation and asserts that reopening these waters to commercial fishing will offer economic opportunities to American fishermen and improve their ability to compete on the global market.
