Obama Makes Hawaii Marine Reserve The Largest Wildlife Sanctuary On Earth

More than 582,000 square miles of remote Pacific ocean have become a protected national monument overnight.

President Barack Obama announced on Aug. 26 that he was more than quadrupling the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument off the northwestern coast of Hawaii, according to media reports.

The president’s action comes during a week of celebrating the National Parks Service 100th anniversary. The new marine monument is more than twice the size of Texas.

“This is one of the most important actions an American president has ever taken for the health of the oceans,” Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii who formally proposed the expansion, said in a statement, according to The Atlantic. “Expanding Papahānaumokuākea will replenish stocks of ‘ahi, promote biodiversity, fight climate change, and give a greater voice to Native Hawaiians in managing this resource. President Obama’s declaration is only the beginning.”

The monument was established in 2006 by former President George W. Bush, and encompasses much of the U.S.’ exclusive economic zone, which prescribes to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, west of Hawaii, notes National Geographic.  

“Resilience to climate change is dependent upon having significant areas of natural protection — for biodiversity and for all the things that hold the planet steady,” Sylvia Earle, a marine biologist and National Geographic explorer-in-residence, said. “This is vitally important to protect our life-support system.”

Since commercial fishing is prohibited within the marine monument, the local fishing industry vigorously fought the expansion.

“To the native Hawaiian, access to marine resources is very, very important and always will be,” Edwin Ebisui Jr., chairman of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, said. “I don’t see how quadrupling the size of the prohibited fishing area in any way furthers their cultural interests.”

“With so much of our [exclusive economic zone] off-limits, it feels as if Hawaiians are taking it for the team again,” Ebisui added.

But historian Douglas Brinkley agrees with Obama’s action.

“Presidents in their last year of office need to do what’s visionary,” Brinkley said. “It’s not about ‘what I can get in the last year.’ It’s about the long-term, which is the essence of conservation.”

Sources: National Geographic, The Atlantic / Photo Credit: Ian Shive/Instagram