Pacific Marine National Monuments: Sanctuaries Under Siege

In the vast Pacific Ocean, far from most populated areas, exist some of the most biologically precious places on Earth. Underwater mountains taller than Everest rise from the deepest ocean trenches. Coral gardens older than human civilization sprawl across seamounts. Islands host seabird populations found nowhere else on the planet. These places represent millions of years of evolution undisturbed by human industrial activity.

For more than a decade, these areas were protected. Commercial fishing was banned. Industrial vessels were prohibited. The boundaries were drawn in recognition of a fundamental truth: once destroyed, these ecosystems cannot be restored on any human timescale.

Then, on June 11, 2026, everything changed. President Trump signed an executive proclamation opening three major Pacific marine national monuments to commercial fishing. Nearly 500,000 square miles of protected ocean suddenly became available for industrial exploitation. The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument, and the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument were all included.

Conservation organizations immediately denounced the decision. Scientists warned of ecosystem collapse. Legal challenges were filed. Yet the proclamation stands, raising a profound question: what happens when you remove protection from some of the ocean's most sensitive places? History provides a troubling answer.

Papahānaumokuākea: A Hawaiian Sacred Space

Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument covers 584,500 square kilometers of the North Pacific Ocean, extending northwest from the main Hawaiian Islands. The name comes from Hawaiian mythology, referring to Papa, the mother of the islands, and Hānaumoku, a god associated with ocean emergence. The monument includes the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain, an underwater mountain range stretching across the Pacific for thousands of kilometers. It includes coral gardens, deep-sea vents, and vast expanses of open ocean. The monument encompasses areas from depths of just a few meters to abyssal depths greater than 4,000 meters.

The biodiversity is staggering. More than 7,000 marine species live within Papahānaumokuākea. Over a quarter of these species are endemic to Hawaii, found nowhere else in the world. The monument provides critical habitat for 31 species listed under the Endangered Species Act, including the Hawaiian monk seal, three species of sea turtle, sperm whales, humpback whales, and numerous seabird species.

The monument holds profound cultural significance to Native Hawaiians. The northwestern islands and the waters surrounding them are considered wao akua, which translates as divine wilderness or sacred ancestral lands. Native Hawaiian practices and values informed the original protection of the monument.

Papahānaumokuākea was originally designated in 2006 under President George W. Bush and expanded in 2016 under President Obama. Notably, both Republican and Democratic administrations recognized the monument's ecological and cultural value. Commercial fishing was prohibited throughout the protected area.

Mariana Trench: The Deepest Place on Earth

The Mariana Trench Marine National Monument encompasses the deepest underwater ecosystem on the planet. The Challenger Deep, located within the monument, reaches depths of nearly 36,000 feet. This is the lowest point in Earth's oceans. Nowhere else on the planet's surface (except space) is farther from sea level. The monument covers nearly 250,000 square kilometers of the western Pacific near the Mariana Islands. It includes seamounts, hydrothermal vents, and the trench itself. The ecosystem is unlike any other on Earth. Organisms adapted to crushing pressures, near-freezing temperatures, and perpetual darkness. Creatures that glow with bioluminescence and have eyes the size of dinner plates. Species that have never been described by science.

The deep sea develops extremely slowly. Organisms grow incrementally. Fish take decades to reach breeding maturity. Coral polyps add millimeters of skeleton per year. A coral colony might take centuries to grow to noticeable size. Reproduction rates are extraordinarily low. Life in the deep sea exists on an evolutionary timescale utterly divorced from human industries.

When commercial fishing occurs in the deep sea, it removes organisms that took decades or centuries to grow. It damages coral gardens that took centuries to establish. It creates ecosystem gaps that take centuries or millennia to refill. Industrial fishing in the deep sea is essentially mining the ocean floor of life, extracting organisms faster than they can reproduce.

The Mariana Trench monument was designated in 2014 under President Obama. It protected a biologically unique ecosystem from industrial exploitation.

Rose Atoll: A Sanctuary for Seabirds

Rose Atoll Marine National Monument lies in the South Pacific near American Samoa. The monument covers approximately 510,000 square kilometers, though much of this is open ocean surrounding the tiny Rose Atoll itself. Rose Atoll is known locally as Nu'u O Manu, which translates to Village of Seabirds. The name is descriptive. The atoll serves as critical habitat for seabirds, hosting approximately 97 percent of American Samoa's entire seabird population. The atoll is a nesting and feeding ground for species including frigatebirds, boobies, terns, tropicbirds, and shearwaters.

The surrounding waters are equally important. The monument contains seamounts and underwater ridges that are hotspots of marine productivity. Fish aggregate in these areas. Predators congregate where prey is abundant. The waters around Rose Atoll represent a crucial link in the pelagic food web of the South Pacific.

Rose Atoll was designated a marine sanctuary in 1974, then expanded and designated as a marine national monument in 2009 under President Obama. The prohibition on commercial fishing was intended to protect both the seabirds that depend on the atoll and the fish populations that support them.

Why These Monuments Were Protected: The Scientific Basis

All three monuments were protected based on scientific evidence of their biological importance and ecological sensitivity. The monuments represent places where biological productivity, endemism, and ecosystem integrity reach exceptional levels. Endemism is the key to understanding why these places required protection. An endemic species is one found nowhere else.

The Hawaiian Islands, despite their small size, have extraordinary endemism. Thousands of species are found only in Hawaii. A significant portion of those species depend on marine habitats. Damage to marine ecosystems directly threatens species that exist nowhere else on Earth.

The deep sea, including the Mariana Trench ecosystem, is so poorly known that new species are discovered with every exploration. The biological potential is unknown. The ecological relationships are unmapped. Scientists recommend precaution in such circumstances. Better to protect first than to damage and wonder later what was lost.

Rose Atoll's importance stems from its role in the broader Pacific ecosystem. Seabird populations are indicators of ecosystem health. Fish populations that support seabirds are indicators of broader marine productivity. Protecting the atoll protects not just the immediate ecosystem but a crucial component of the South Pacific food web.

The decision to protect these areas also reflected understanding of how human industrial activity damages ecosystems. The scientific consensus, reached after decades of research, is that commercial fishing in pristine areas causes measurable ecosystem changes. Those changes cascade through food webs. Predator populations decline, causing prey populations to explode, causing cascading effects down the chain.

The Trump Administration's June 2026 Proclamation: A Turning Point

On June 11, 2026, President Trump signed an executive proclamation titled "Restoring American Commercial Fishing in the Pacific." The proclamation immediately opened portions of all three Pacific marine national monuments to commercial fishing. The specific areas opened varied by monument. In Papahānaumokuākea, the proclamation opened the Mau Zone and Ho'omalu Zone and areas seaward of 50 nautical miles. In the Mariana Trench monument, the Islands Unit was opened. In Rose Atoll, waters between 12 and 50 nautical miles surrounding the atoll were opened.

The total area newly available for commercial fishing exceeded 400,000 square kilometers. The impact of the proclamation was immediate. Fishing permit holders began evaluating possibilities. Fishing vessels made plans. Within days, commercial fishing operations were being planned in areas that had been closed to such activity for over a decade. The administration justified the action as supporting American fishermen and strengthening seafood competitiveness. NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs stated that the proclamation reflected the administration's commitment to American fisheries. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called it "delivering for American fishermen."

The administration argued that prohibitions on monument fishing were excessive and that current laws provided sufficient environmental protection. It asserted that commercial fishing could occur at sustainable levels if properly managed. The proclamation placed monument fishing under the jurisdiction of regional fishery management councils, moving authority away from the monument conservation framework.

The Legal Challenge: Questions of Authority

Almost immediately, conservation organizations filed legal challenges to the proclamation. The arguments centered on whether the president has authority to substantially reduce or eliminate protections that previous presidents established under the Antiquities Act. The precedent came from earlier in 2025. In April 2025, the Trump administration had similarly attempted to open the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument to commercial fishing. A federal court in Honolulu ruled against this action, finding that the administration had violated required legal procedures. The court determined that the Administration had not followed the Administrative Procedure Act by forgoing public comment before allowing commercial fishing.

That precedent raised serious questions about the June 2026 proclamation. Legal experts noted that the proclamation might face similar challenges. The Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice, and other organizations immediately filed suits challenging the June proclamation. The suits argued that the president did not have authority to eliminate core monument protections without a public process.

Conservation lawyers also raised broader constitutional questions. Could a president unilaterally reverse protections established by prior presidents? The Antiquities Act did not explicitly address this question. Courts would have to decide whether Congress intended the law to permit such reversals.

Overfishing: What History Shows

To understand why opening these monuments to commercial fishing is alarming, it is necessary to examine what happens when commercial fishing occurs in sensitive marine ecosystems. The evidence is abundant and concerning. In 2015, the last year commercial fishing was permitted in an expansion area within Papahānaumokuākea, the Hawaii longline fleet caught 7,800 sharks. This staggering number was not the target species. The sharks were incidental catch. Fishermen were trying to catch tuna. Yet their fishing methods captured almost 8,000 sharks as bycatch. Of these 7,800 sharks, more than 99 percent were discarded dead.

This single fishery in a single year, operating in a single area with incomplete data, killed more sharks than most conservation programs could hope to protect in an entire year. And these were sharks in a place where shark populations had already been decimated by previous fishing.

Globally, shark populations have declined by approximately 90 percent in the last half century. Some regional populations have declined by 99 percent. These declines result primarily from fishing and bycatch. Sharks are particularly vulnerable because they grow slowly, mature late (some species take 16 years to reach breeding maturity), and have low reproductive rates.

The cascading effects are severe. Sharks are apex predators at the top of marine food webs. When shark populations collapse, it triggers ecosystem-wide changes. Medium-level predators, previously controlled by sharks, expand in population. Prey species decline. Herbivorous fish populations increase, leading to coral reef damage. The ecosystem shifts to a fundamentally different state. Recovery to the original state can take decades or centuries, if it occurs at all.

In the North Atlantic, dramatic declines in shark populations triggered well-documented ecosystem shifts. Cownose rays, previously controlled by sharks, exploded in population. The rays fed on scallops and other shellfish. Scallop fisheries collapsed because ray populations were consuming prey faster than commercial fishermen could harvest it. A collapse in apex predators ultimately destroyed the very fishery that benefited from the apex predator's removal.

Deep-sea fishing carries similar risks, but with longer timescales and greater uncertainty. Deep-sea organisms grow slowly. If a deep-sea fish population is depleted, recovery might take centuries. A coral garden damaged by fishing equipment might take a thousand years to re-establish. The deep-sea fishing industry essentially mines organisms that took millennia to accumulate, removing them in years or decades.

The Impacts on Specific Ecosystems

The opening of these monuments to commercial fishing carries different risks depending on the specific fishing methods employed and the ecosystems targeted. In Papahānaumokuākea, the permitted fishing methods include longlining and purse seining. Both methods involve high bycatch. Longlining involves baited hooks suspended on lines that extend for kilometers through the water column. The method catches sharks, sea turtles, seabirds, and marine mammals, not just the targeted tuna. Purse seining involves deploying large nets to encircle fish schools. Dolphins, turtles, and other marine life are often caught in the process.

The specific areas opened for fishing in Papahānaumokuākea include habitat for endangered sea turtles, monk seals, and seabirds. These species do not recognize fishing boundaries. They will interact with fishing equipment and suffer the consequences.

In the Mariana Trench monument, the ecosystem risk is fundamentally different. The trench's deep-sea organisms have no evolutionary experience with predation by humans. They have no adaptations for avoiding fishing gear. A fishing vessel operating in the trench will remove organisms that are evolutionarily naive to the threat. The deep-sea fish and corals in the Mariana Trench grow so slowly that population recovery, if it occurs at all, requires centuries or millennia. A fishing operation removing deep-sea organisms is essentially mining a resource that accumulated over geological timescales.

In Rose Atoll, the threat is to the seabird population and the fish populations they depend on. Rose Atoll hosts 97 percent of American Samoa's seabird population. The birds depend on abundant fish for feeding. Commercial fishing will reduce fish populations. Fewer fish means fewer seabirds. The result could be a collapse of one of the Pacific's important seabird populations.

The Broader Context: A Pattern of Monument Changes

The opening of these three monuments is not an isolated action. It is part of a broader series of Trump administration decisions to reopen marine monuments to commercial fishing. In April 2025, Trump opened the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument to commercial fishing. In February 2026, he opened the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in the Atlantic. The June 2026 action on the three Pacific monuments represented the third such proclamation. All five of America's marine national monuments have now been subjected to reopening to commercial fishing under the Trump administration. The pattern suggests a systematic approach to dismantling the marine monument system.

Supporters of the administration's actions argue that overregulation harms American fishermen. They contend that foreign fishing fleets operating outside of US waters catch American fish stocks, and that lifting restrictions would allow American fishermen to compete better. Opponents argue that the economic case is weak. Data show that monument closures have not significantly affected commercial catch outside the monuments. Most commercial fishing occurs outside monument boundaries. Opening monuments would provide minimal economic benefit to fishermen while causing significant ecological damage.

The Uncertainty Ahead: What Happens Next

The immediate question is whether the June 2026 proclamation will survive legal challenges. Based on the April 2025 precedent, there are reasonable grounds for courts to overturn or substantially limit the proclamation. If courts follow the logic from the Hawaii case, they may find that the administration violated required legal procedures. However, even if the proclamation survives in some form, the biological damage may already be occurring. Fishing operations may have commenced as soon as the proclamation was signed. Fish populations may have been depleted. Endangered species may have been caught as bycatch. Once ecosystems are disturbed, recovery is not guaranteed.

The longer-term question is whether the marine monument system itself can survive sustained political attacks. The Antiquities Act has been used by 18 presidents, nine Republican and nine Democratic, to protect 160 national monuments. The law was designed to provide a mechanism for protecting treasures without requiring Congressional approval. Yet if presidents can reverse monument protections established by previous presidents, the permanence of monument protection is compromised.

Scholars of conservation law argue that the Trump administration's interpretation of the Antiquities Act contradicts established legal precedent. They contend that the law does not grant presidents authority to dismantle monument protections. However, these legal questions will ultimately be decided by courts, and the outcomes are uncertain.

The Wake Behind: What Science Predicts

Scientific consensus is clear about what opening these monuments to fishing will produce. Ecosystem models, based on decades of data from other systems, predict predictable outcomes. Fish populations targeted by commercial fishing will decline. Nontarget species caught as bycatch will decline. Apex predators including sharks will decline further. Medium-level predators will increase, causing cascading effects down the food chain. Overall ecosystem diversity will decrease. Ecosystem productivity will change. The ecosystem will shift toward a new equilibrium dominated by species favored by fishing.

The timescale for these changes varies. In shallow water systems like Rose Atoll, measurable changes could occur within years. In the deep sea, changes might take decades to become obvious, but the damage will be occurring throughout that time.

Recovery from fishing impacts, if it occurs, requires decades or centuries. A deep-sea ecosystem damaged by fishing might require a thousand years to recover, if protection is restored and recovery is allowed to proceed. Given current rates of ocean exploration and economic pressure on fisheries, recovery is not guaranteed.

Sources

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