Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The Western Pacific Regional fishery Management Council remains opposed to further expansion of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM), closing waters 50 to 200 nautical miles seaward of Palmyra Atoll, Kingman Reef and Howland and Baker Islands. The existing PRIMNM already closes all waters 0 to 200 nm around Wake Island, Johnston Atoll, Jarvis Island, and closes waters 0 to 50 nm from the proposed island areas.

This is the same proposal about which Gov. Lemanu Peleti Mauga  wrote recently to U.S. President Joe Biden urging its rejection and proposing a scientific study prior to any further expansion.

“Please help us sustain and protect our delicate, fishing-based economy by denying the proposed expansion of the PRIMNM,” Lemanu pleaded with Biden in a June 15 letter, and requested that before the expansion, for the President to commission a scientific study to ensure the expansion accomplishes its intended goals.

Over the weekend Congresswoman Uifa’atali Amata also wrote to the president in support of the governor urging the administration to seek thorough local input and advice from Pacific territories.

According the governor, the congresswoman and the Council, the PRIMNM expansion would jeopardize the viability of the tuna cannery in American Samoa, the largest employer in the territory. The cannery relies on fish supply from the U.S.-flagged purse seine fleet, which has declined from 38 to 13 vessels. Closing the remaining U.S. waters of Howland, Baker, and Palmyra Islands forces U.S. purse seiners to fish farther away from American Samoa and thereby deliver their catch to closer ports, like Ecuador. 

 “More than half of the people in American Samoa live below the poverty level,” said Council Chair Archie Soliai. “If the president signs off on this, it will be in conflict with his executive order on advancing equity and environmental justice in underserved communities.”

 “With the additional restrictions that keep getting placed on indigenous fishermen, pretty soon no one will be able to go fishing. This has got to stop,” emphasized Monique Amani, Council member from Guam. “During the pandemic, the islands came together to utilize their subsistence traditions of fishing to support each other.”

Hawai‘i Council member Matt Ramsey added, “We need to consider that the whole monument boundary is surrounded by more than 3,000 foreign vessels that fish in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. We are not allowed to fish, so we are being penalized and foreign countries are not.” 

Council members continued to express frustration with restricted access to fishing within monuments and sanctuaries in their areas. “What is the point of a monument expansion?” asked Guam Council member Chelsa Muña-Brecht. “Is it to preserve the pretty fish in the area? It doesn’t serve the community and doesn’t level the playing ground between U.S. and foreign fishers.”

Council Executive Director Kitty Simonds asked, “How much more protection would we have by an overlay of the sanctuary? Closing these waters to protect migratory fish is futile when the fish move everywhere.”

The Council says the Antiquities Act that presidents use to establish monuments is not a transparent process, but is implemented through a “top-down” approach that conflicts with equity and environmental justice principles. “The Antiquities Act was intended to protect burial sites and relics of indigenous people. It is not an appropriate approach to marine conservation — we have the Magnuson-Stevens Act for that,” said John Gourley, Council vice chair from the CNMI. “Monument designation bypasses the courtesy of involving affected communities.”

The Council will ask President Biden for a comprehensive evaluation of the unintended consequences of the proposed expansion and that any measures be evaluated through a transparent and public process prior to implementation. This is essentially the same request made by Gov. Lemanu in his recent letter.

(Source: Western Pacific Regional fishery Management Council)