Obama to create world's largest ocean preserve
WASHINGTON
(AP) — Moving to protect fragile marine life, President Barack Obama
announced plans Tuesday to create the largest ocean preserve in the
world by banning drilling, fishing and other activities in a massive
stretch of the Pacific Ocean.
Associated Press
Tue, Jun 17, 2014, 11:48pm EDT - US Markets are closed
Obama to create world's largest ocean preserve
By JOSH LEDERMAN
10 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Moving
to protect fragile marine life, President Barack Obama announced plans
Tuesday to create the largest ocean preserve in the world by banning
drilling, fishing and other activities in a massive stretch of the
Pacific Ocean.
Carbon pollution is making the world's oceans more acidic, pollution is threatening marine life and overfishing could wipe out entire species, Obama warned as he vowed to expand the sanctuary during an ocean conservation conference hosted by the State Department.
"If we ignore these problems, if we drain our oceans of their resources, we won't just be squandering one of humanity's greatest treasures," Obama said in a recorded video message. "We'll be cutting off one of the world's major sources of food and economic growth, including for the United States. We cannot afford to let that happen."
Obama hasn't settled on the final boundaries for the preserve. The White House said Obama planned to solicit input from fishermen, scientists, politicians, experts in conservation and others before the new protections take effect.
But conservation groups the potential reach could be massive.
Under maritime law,
nations have exclusive economic control over waters that extends 200
nautical miles from its coast. Drawing on an geographic analysis of U.S.
possessions in the region, the Pew Charitable Trusts determined that
Obama could protect more than 780,000 square miles — almost nine times
what Bush set aside when he created the monument. If Obama were to also
protect all U.S. waters in the Pacific other than Hawaii, the sanctuary
could grow to roughly 1.5 million square miles, Pew said.
The
practical effect of the expanded marine sanctuary could be modest. At
present, very little commercial fishing is conducted in the waters Obama
is seeking to protect, and there are no signs that drilling in the
waters is imminent. But conservation groups said it was crucial to take
proactive steps to prevent those activities going forward."Anywhere there are fish to be extracted or minerals or resources, these locations are under threat form commercial extraction," said Matt Rand, who runs Pew's global ocean legacy project.
The executive steps, first reported by The Washington Post, come as Obama is searching for ways to leave his second-term mark on the environment despite opposition from many Republicans in Congress.
Presidents have authority to phase out commercial fishing and other activities from U.S. waters under the 1906 Antiquities Act, the same law that allows for land-based national monuments to be created by executive order.
Still, the moves could rankle some GOP lawmakers who say Obama is exceeding his authority by going around Congress to promote his agenda on issues like the environment, immigration and gay rights. Earlier this month Obama unveiled sweeping new pollution limits on U.S. power plants amid signs that Congress wouldn't act soon to combat climate change.
In a related
environmental move, Obama also vowed to create a government program to
combat black market fishing and seafood fraud, in which seafood products
are mislabeled to hide their origin. The White House said 20 percent of
the wild marine fish caught each year are part of the black market, at a
cost of $23 billion to the legitimate fishing industry.
"President
Obama's announcement is a historic step forward in the fight against
seafood fraud and illegal fishing worldwide," said Beth Lowell of the
conservation group Oceana. "This initiative is a practical solution to
an ugly problem and will forever change the way we think about our
seafood."
Obama, in his
public comments, indicated the significance was partially symbolic, but
could spur the rest of the world to take action.
"For this effort to succeed, it has to be bigger than any one country," Obama said.
___
Reach Josh Lederman at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP
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