- U.S. President Donald Trump issued a proclamation on Feb. 6 to open the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, a marine protected area off the northeastern U.S., to commercial fishing.
- Trump wrote that reopening the area will not endanger marine species and will help the fishing business, and industry groups praised the proclamation.
- Conservationists decried the move, saying the monument is a critical sanctuary for marine life and the food webs that serve the interest of the U.S. public.
- The Trump administration has also moved to deregulate the other U.S. marine national monuments, which are in the Pacific Ocean.
U.S. President Donald Trump issued a proclamation on Feb. 6 to open a marine protected area off the northeastern U.S. to commercial fishing, in his latest move to deregulate the country’s waters and fisheries.
The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, a 12,725-square-kilometer (4,913-square-mile) area roughly 209 km (130 mi) southeast of Cape Cod, is home to deep-sea corals and sponges, whale sharks and a variety of marine mammals.
Trump wrote that reopening the area will not endanger marine species and will help the fishing business, and industry groups praised the proclamation. But conservationists decried it, saying the monument is a critical sanctuary for marine life and the food webs that serve the interest of the U.S. public.
“This Monument supports amazing species from the seafloor to the sea surface, and we see evidence of that during every aerial survey,” Jessica Redfern, an associate vice president at the New England Aquarium, a Boston-based nonprofit, said in a statement. “Removing protections for Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument puts these species at risk.”
U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a member of the opposition Democratic Party from the northeastern state of Connecticut, also spoke out against the proclamation, calling it reckless and “hugely misguided.”
“This natural treasure should be preserved for future generations, not endangered by industrial fishing,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “It’s home to immensely valuable wildlife— a marine ecosystem that deserves to be defended.”
The four other U.S. marine national monuments are in the Pacific Ocean, surrounding U.S. islands. They were originally established by former President George W. Bush, a Republican; two were later expanded by former President Barack Obama, a Democrat. Marine national monuments generally provide a high level of environmental protection and preclude commercial fishing. They can be subject to political debate, and the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is no exception.
In 2016, Obama established it as the first and only marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean. The rules prevented commercial fishing, and some fishing groups sued unsuccessfully.
In June 2020, President Trump, a Republican then serving in his first term, revoked the fishing restrictions in a proclamation. But after Joe Biden, a Democrat, became president in 2021, he reversed Trump’s proclamation with one of his own. Now Trump, back in office, has reversed the reversal, reinstating his own 2020 proclamation.
The new proclamation states that “appropriately managed commercial fishing would not put the objects of historic and scientific interest that the monument protects at risk.” It says that commercial fishing is already regulated by the U.S. government under the Magnuson-Stevens Act and that U.S. conservation laws already provide specific protections to other “plant and animal resources.”
Bob Vanasse, executive director of Saving Seafood, an industry group, hailed the proclamation and dismissed anticipated criticism.
“We fully expect the usual environmental advocacy groups to respond as they did in 2020, with misleading rhetoric and predictions of catastrophic overfishing,” he said in a statement. “So let’s be absolutely clear: Any fishing that resumes in the monument will remain subject to the full force of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, a law these same groups routinely hail as a global benchmark for sustainable fishery management.
“Their objection is not about protecting the ocean-it is about controlling American commercial fishermen and pushing a broader, extremist agenda that seeks to deny citizens the ability to responsibly use our resources, regardless of science or sustainability,” he added. “The truth is that America’s commercial fishermen are among the world’s most responsible ocean stewards.”
Members of many conservation groups criticized Trump’s proclamation, saying he’d effectively turned the area into a “paper park” because the fishing prohibitions were the monument’s most important rules. Fishing gear threatens a wide range of marine species, even those that aren’t targeted, due to incidental catch, entanglement and habitat destruction.
The monument has served as a sanctuary for more than a dozen marine mammal species, including several endangered species of whales. It’s been one of the only areas along the eastern seaboard — a highly industrialized ocean area — in which mammals and other wildlife don’t face the risk of entanglement in fishing gear, according to conservation groups.
The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument consists of two sections that straddle a continental shelf. Upwelling caused by the shelf creates a highly productive marine environment and a rich web of life, as does the presence of several underwater mountains, which are biodiversity hotspots, and other features such as canyons.
“This Monument is a unique, ecologically valuable, and irreplaceable marine area that should remain protected from human impacts,” Peter Auster, a professor emeritus of marine sciences at the University of Connecticut, said in a statement.
Conservation groups argue that, as in 2020, deregulating the monument puts a wide range of species at risk and will not have substantial economic benefits. A 2022 study by John Lynham, a marine economist at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, found that the closures and openings of the area to fishing had not had much effect on the industry.
The fates of the four other marine national monuments are also in limbo. In April, Trump issued a proclamation to open up most of the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, an area larger than the state of Texas, to commercial fishing. A federal judge blocked that reopening in August, but the case is ongoing.
And in another move in April, Trump ordered a review of all marine national monuments to determine if they should be opened to commercial fishing. The administration later solicited public comment on the matter but hasn’t released the results of the review publicly.
Banner image: Common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) ride the bow wave of a research vehicle in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in 2024. Image courtesy of Alex DeCiccio/University of Rhode Island Inner Space Center for Mystic Aquarium, public domain.
Citations:
Redfern, J. V., Kryc, K. A., Weiss, L., Hodge, B. C., O’Brien, O., Kraus, S. D., … Auster, P. J. (2021). Opening a marine monument to commercial fishing compromises species protections. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8. doi:10.3389/fmars.2021.645314
Lynham, J. (2022). Fishing activity before closure, during closure, and after reopening of the Northeast canyons and Seamounts marine National Monument. Scientific Reports, 12(1). doi:10.1038/s41598-021-03394-6
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