Loss of Federal Protections May Imperil Pacific Reefs, Scientists Warn

I'm not an ecological scientist but it seems to me that ecosystems bend with stress put on them and the damage goes pretty much unnoticed, at least to the casual observer, until a tipping point and then it crashes with catastrophic damage. Massive population loss occurs and many species are wiped out. Until this point is reached, people think nothing is wrong and push for further exploitation taking resources that are slightly less desirable thus straining the ecosystem to its limit. Then, when there are no more resources to harvest, the next source is attacked until it is exhausted and so on. We've seen this pattern repeated on land and the ocean. With the increased rate of over-population, humans are destroying the planet at breakneck speed. Trump and his ilk seem to be oblivious to this process; or maybe they see the destruction coming and want to get what they can until it's all gone. That seems spectacularly stupid but stupidity seems to be the most plentiful commodity in the Republican party. Some wise person once said something to the effect of, don't blame malice when behavior can be explained by stupidity. So I'll be charitable and call Republicans stupid. I does kind of look like malice though.

Save the oceans from humanity, before there is nothing left.

This administration is going to leave the most destructive environmental legacy of any in modern times.

How can this be stopped? Every day it's a hidden article here or there that shows the Trump administration destroying our precious few environmental reservoirs in favor of corporate benefit. It's maddening to sit by and watch this all happen, knowing that realistically there's nothing we can do about it.

When coral reefs are destroyed, the fish, and fishing, as we know it will end. Short sighted fishing interests are planning their own demise.

The notion that we can some how predict the future results of current activities is farcical at best. Just because one activity, banning CFC's, has worked does not mean that others will. There is no doubt that the unfettered advance of human civilization has had significant, in a negative sense, effects on this planet is obvious. The problem lies with the population growth itself. Until that is reversed, not reduced, there is little that can be done. The notion that some starving family in any part of the world shares the same ideas as the costal elites is a joke. The developed world has produced tremendous improvements in the quality of life. But this all comes with huge environmental impacts. There is no way that the developed world will come up with any meaningful plans that can change that and give these families in developing countries a much better life.

The solution here is simple folks- stop eating fish. Just stop. I ate fish for years, and finally, the cumulative toll of my (our) habit was so great and was so disheartening, that I saw no option but to give it up. Stop complaining about all of the destruction in the ocean, and put your money (or, lack thereof-) where your mouth is.

Take a deep breath folks. No tuna is commercially caught using the gear shown in the photos that accompany this article. Tuna purse seiners (harvest the tuna you get in a can) do not fish inside 12 miles from any coast or anywhere close to reefs or corals. As Hilborn is indicating, they have no measurable impact on these reefs or the surrounding ecology. They fish in deep blue water, but they are indeed impacted themselves by these monuments that extend out to 200 miles. Before you spew vitriol at "industrialist" fishermen, consider that, if you are alive, you are eating something. If you are eating something, you are having a (probably negative) impact on the environment somewhere. A few years ago I read in Nat.Geographic that the main driver of Brazilian rain forest clear-cutting was the desire to grow soybeans and cattle. If you're eating tofu or hamburgers, you're lifting worldwide prices for these commodities, and incentivizing their production. Food comes from someplace. If that place is land, that means the displacement, and potential extinction, of whatever flora and fauna was there before. It also means inevitable topsoil loss, river sedimentation, fertilizer usage (nitrogen is a powerful global warming agent), pesticide and herbicide usage, etc. Get my point? Compare this to tuna and other fish species that are sustainably caught. They exist in the wild, a sustainable percentage is captured and the overall environment is minimally impacted.

Where are the conservatives who believe in conservation?

I've seen much smaller reserves work in the Cook Islands and Tuvalu. Local fishermen were initially against them...until the spillover from protected areas began to produce much larger catches than had been the case prior to the establishment of the reserves. It is essential these reserves be protected from exploitation.

We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap. -Kurt Vonnegut

The destruction of the united States continues. All we have left is Meuller and his team to salvage what we can once trump and his illk are gone.

I'm a Maritimer from Nova Scotia. The fishery is in our DNA. But we must shed the landsman's stereotype of the noble fisherman in his wee boat facing the great sea. Those fellows are long gone. Billion dollar corporations now "harvest" the steadily shrinking marine stock with remorseless, brutal, industrial efficiency. They're killing us and for nothing but bigger profits. It's heartbreaking but more important, they're destroying our childrens' future. Sorry folks for sticking my Canadian nose into your affairs, but from here it seems that Trump and his cronies are on a mission to utterly wreck the only home we have. This is just one example of their betrayal of future generations for short term gain. Sad!

JFC, it’s as if we have an administration that cares nothing for this planet. What will money buy when all the life is extinguished? Or are they happily embracing their demise.? They act as if they’ve got another planet to emigrate to. Murderous greed.

The operative themes of the Trump Administration are rapacious greed, total disregard of science, and promotion of our worst instincts, including prejudice, cruelty and gratuitous destruction. The latest plans to withdraw federal protections from marine reserves fits near perfectly with the Trump Administration's modus operandi.

So this is all really because Obama expanded the protected area and anything Obama must me removed, right?

The nation has spoken through the electoral college- the environment is to be used to make money. Whether CO2, coal, gasoline, deforestation or depleting the oceans it is all for America to use up. For that matter nuclear war is fine as well. This is fake news. The people of West Virginia, Kentucky, and all the red states, not to mention the majority of white men and women demand it. Time to move on MAGA and forget about the environment!

Unfortunately, commercial fishermen know nought of conservation. They stip the waters of every harvistable fish including those once called trash (think Chilean Sea Bass). These monuments as the article points out serve as reservoirs from which the seas are restocked after the oceans are otherwise stripped of life. Remove them there will no stocks to replenish the oceans

I lived in Hawaii and Wespac is just like any other industry organization anywhere in that their only concern is money and the easier the money the better. Their "scientists" come from the same pathetic group that tobacco and oil companies hire. Science for a price. Hookers with degrees. Remember the Pacific tuna fleet used to be based in San Diego but they've had to move further and further west over the years as they've overfished everyplace they go. If they had any foresight they'd realize these sanctuaries benefit them more than anyone else and will assure their long-term survival. But, no, they're just another group of short-sighted greedy Trump supporters who'll jeopardize their children's future for a few more bucks now. They have to be stopped now and forever. They are too stupid to manage the resources they depend on.

I follow a vlog of a couple that sails around the world. They are currently in the Mediterranean and when they dive to check their anchor they see absolutely no fish and very little else. We should be actively protecting our territorial waters, and limiting fishing. Fisherman can get another job just like anyone else.

Just becasue some large pelagic fishes, e.g., large tunas, range over thousands of miles, does not justify Ray Hilborn's views on marine protected areas. There are all of of the other fishes and the thousands of interdependent species in these ecosytems that will be affected by agressive fishing practices. Some fishermen care about fishing opportuntunies for their grandchildren, but many are no different from other businessmen, focused completely on short-term profits. Marine Protected Areas are now a proven tool to benefit fish populations and the marine ecosystems that support them. Some consultants are proven tools for industry. Ray, you are not helping! Robert Spies

I have to wonder if the President has ever visited a national park or national monument; ever stood awed by the grandeur of these sites and felt the magnificence of nature unobstructed by human touch. The thought of hiking through a national park and coming to a turn in the trail to be faced by an oil pumping station (no matter how small) sickens me. The idea that these oceanic monuments can fail--and lead to the failure of the marine environment and more--to support an industry that "is hardly in trouble" and likely will, in fact, benefit little is truly shameful.

The problem with current fishery management is the concept of "maximum sustainable yield". It was developed based on simplified fisheries based on "managed" stocks and doesn't relate to the current state of world fisheries where habitats have been destroyed by fishing and other human disturbance and undisturbed ocean ecology which no longer exists anywhere. Wespac would be very wise to promote protection of all of the current protected areas. The solution to poaching is simple. Confiscate all boats and gear found inside any protected area and jail all aboard the vessels.

The Ocean is turning into a wasteland. Seeing the photos of the seamounts is depressing. According to the article “It was a biological desert, Where normally fish and crabs dart about forests of coral and sponges, all we could can see was a parking lot full of nets and lines, with no life at all.” The amount of gear left behind by trawlers is jaw-dropping. They need to put a stop to the devastation of the environment. Allowing commercial fishing in protected areas is hurting the ocean. Trump should think about all the fish and aquatic life before rolling back the federal protection of the Pacific islands. If these national monuments lose protection, the problem will get even worse. The Hawaiian fishing industry doesn’t need more space to catch tuna. Catching Bigeye tuna has doubled since 2006 and have already filled quotas.

"They’re just against all protected areas on principle." Here, let me paraphrase "They're against it because they are greedy and could care less about future generations."

Fisherman will look short-term and ignore the long-term impact of overfishing. I remember the yelling by crabbers when they were no longer allowed to take she-crab from the Chesapeake Bay years ago. The harvest was already bad because there were so few crabs. Of course the crab population was destructing! She-crabs make baby crabs that grow into adult crabs. Crabbers refused to understand basic biology. After the ban on she-crabs, the population recovered in only a couple of years -- and crabbing was good again.

If we don’t stop the deforestation and the stripping of our coral reefs where will our food come from? Oh yes. Fast food is grown in factories inside large buildings. Fast food is what republicans eat. Explains everything.

The Ocean is turning into a wasteland. Seeing the photos of the seamounts is depressing. According to the article “It was a biological desert, Where normally fish and crabs dart about forests of coral and sponges, all we could can see was a parking lot full of nets and lines, with no life at all.” The amount of gear left behind by trawlers is jaw-dropping. They need to put a stop to the devastation of the environment. Allowing commercial fishing in protected areas is hurting the ocean. Trump should think about all the fish and aquatic life before rolling back the federal protection of the Pacific islands. If these national monuments lose protection, the problem will get even worse. The Hawaiian fishing industry doesn’t need more space to catch tuna. Catching Bigeye tuna has doubled since 2006 and have already filled quotas.

Considering these reef systems is birth and nursery area for the majority of our fish including those lower down the food chain - it won't be long before these fishing companies regret wiping them out. In 10 - 20 years they will be complaining of lower yields...then a few years later be out of business. Good luck with that.

I will donate money to the lawsuit to fight for the protect of these marine reserves.

Allowing Wespac or any organization to deplete our food supply would finally nail the coffin for us all. I guess they believe that we will all be genetically modified to eat tablets instead of food. Greed definitely is insatiable. There is no reason for Wespac to want this area other than to show to their members that they can make reefs open to fishing, their appetite for power is also ravenous.

Obama snaps open his phone, makes a decision on a whim and reversing it is a denial of science. You can't make this stuff up. If zealots are successful at challenging the drawback of monument boundaries, Congress will act.

Been all over these islands in my Coast Guard sailing days...they host an incredibly diverse group of species and I feel fortunate to be in the minority to explore total healthy reefs in their pristine state. One key indicator is the abundance of sharks, rays, ulua and other top end predators that we rarely see in the local Hawaiian Islands with the sadly environmentally stressed and overfished reef systems. In particular, the NW Hawaiian Islands, with their cooler water temperatures, are incredibly diverse and beautiful and their isolation has probably helped reduced the harm. However these areas are not immune to macro threats such as warming, acidification, global pressure on pelagic fish stocks, and the unimaginable amount of marine debris that now plagues the North Pacific. We need to greatly increase, not reduce the federal protection of these areas against short term exploitation of our precious ocean resources. Despite what our local fisheries council claims, the Hawaii long line fishery will continue to do fine without reducing these protections. If the price of local sushi and sashimi goes up a bit, that's not a bad thing....

During the early 1970's I spent some time watching the Tuna boats come into Honolulu .The most amazing site were the decks full of average 900lb tuna with eyes the size of dinner plates. I would say none less than 900 lbs.and over. Back then the locals were'nt to amazed ,there was no such thing as Sushi,in fact the tuna was for canned tuna and cat food.Today there are no tuna over 2 to 4 hundred pounds and very few over 200 lbs. The Tuna fishery is in the barely existing era due to overpopulation especially in Asia and the immense popularity of the Tuna ,which never really existed a few decades ago. Yes and the constant pollution of the sea with trash and fishing gear. Even with complete control it would take decades of clean up to get anywhere near only 40 years ago.

Republicans don't know nor believe in science. Only 3% of water on Earth is fresh. Coral reefs, tropical rain forests and swamps are centers of diverse biological ecological evolutionary fit natural selection.

About 70% of our Earth's surface is Ocean but only roughly 3% of it is currently protected according to the MPA Atlas.org. with 1% strongly protected as marine preserves. Marine reserves can help reduce and buffer the impacts of climate change on the Ocean, rebuild species abundance and diversity. They are essential for us all and are proven to make areas more sustainable in the long run, have benefits like preventing coastal erosion and protection of coastal habitats such as mangroves and coral reefs.

Trawl fishing, in which nets are dragged across the bottom, is immensely destructive and should be forbidden almost everywhere, in my opinion. Long-line fishing does not cause the type of damage found on the seamounts. If we want to protect these ares, they should be properly declared federally protected areas by Congress -- Marine National Parks -- and some teeth added for their protection. The National Monument status is very much like a presidential mandate -- it is done my decree without legislative approval. So, let's do it right -- have Congress created properly designated Marine National Parks, and make sure there are rangers and enforcement personnel in the budget.

Remember when big corporate agriculture came into play and shut down a lot of the smaller, family farms? Well the same thing is going on with the small fisherman and big seafood corps. Has been for decades. Like Walmart is the the Mom and Pops on Main St. Those 4 or 5 mega seafood companies are removing from the sea in one season which in the past would've taken generations of the independent fishermen on their small vessels. The large entities are also in the pocket of our congressmen and DC. Their lobbyists have very deep pockets. Think Starkist, Van De Camps and Gorton's. Say goodbye to the quaint, family owned boats of yesteryear. It is all about mega corporate fishing now. They are out maneuvering the smaller guys with over regulating them with federal and state laws and fines that they can't afford. The smaller guys financially defeated just give up. Strip mining the oceans has severe environmental repercussions. Just ask the Chinese and Japanese and others. And what we don't take from the seas will be decimated by plastics and other toxic chemicals that are dumped by the tonnes into the waters, daily. Eating seafood is becoming increasingly risky too. Contamination is problematic. Increasing ocean temps is also creating havoc. Beware.

As far as I can gather, the argument against the marine reserves is simply that fisherman won't be allowed to fish there. There is no evidence that fisherman are being driven out of business--bigeye catch doubling. The fishery organization argues instead for rules that are easy to challenge, hard to police, and with benefits hard to quantify. And why is Zinke listening to them?

Heartbreaking. We must all remember that so much damage is directly linked to the so called "Green Party" and its gratuitous interference in recent U.S. elections. Ideologues are often their own worst enemies. SHAME ON THEM ALL.

It was more than symbolic when Zinke rode into town on a horse... to ride roughshod over the environment and natural resources that are part of the legacy we should be nurturing and sustaining in perpetuity. He is intent on raping and pillaging of our resources to benefit a few right now, with no thought to the future.

The corrupt ideologue Zinke must be removed. Can citizens who care about the one element of our country that the world admired -- it's beautiful land and sea -- "from sea to shining sea" -- please push for an investigation! The only people who want to make money on our environment are those who ALREADY HAVE IT!

The ocean is a delicate and complex ecosystem that we know relatively little about. We DO know that the food chain is precarious — if fishermen want to continue catching larger predators, they need protected areas to maintain overall ocean health. Ray Hilborn says that “The monuments just force the fishermen to go farther and spend more fuel to catch the same fish,” he said in an interview. “It’s a fake protection.” He's being disingenuous. The argument he makes to lift protections — that fish move around — is the argument one can make to provide protection: it's all interconnected. Overfish now, pay later. Except that once these ecosystems are degraded, they may never come back. So our oceans will pay forever.

The destruction of the Pacific Reefs is 'criminal'', and based chiefly upon commercial interests of fishermen who could give a damn. Just don't expect any vigorous protection of the environment by climate science denier Trump and Co., a destructive mafia installed in government to abuse the office for personal gain. A combination of vulgarity and willful ignorance. Those folks in local communities directly affected, and everybody else, have the obligation to stop this stupidity.

Ah yes, anything to rape and pillage at the expense, in the end, of our own lives. Ignorance will not keep even the Trumpsters and the GOP from the fate they seem driven to accomplish for us all. Good to know that folks from some of the more sane and educated states (including Colorado, when I last read up on this) are sending reps to the big climate change meeting with other countries. At least they will know that some people here in the US are educated and give a hoot about something beyond a slimy fast buck. Any goon Trump sends is bound to be a bible thumping proponent of non-science.. or at least against the accredited scientists.

Just one more extremely dangerous possibility for our dear leader. He will destroy everything of value unless we stop him, poste haste. He has a first class reservation in hell.

Wholesale depletion of fish stocks worldwide by ever more dangerous processes that remove everything alive for profit are only one part of the problem. We are ill informed about the mysterious ocean in all its rich variety, but profiteers and kleptocrats - as well as struggling individual fisherman - are well informed as to how to take its bounty. As ever more efficient machines take over jobs on land, they are also used to streamline fishing. The oceans have been absorbing a large amount of ongoing warming and losing monstrous value as it acidifies. There are a variety of other toxic inputs to our oceans that might, if we were better informed, make us pause in our heedlong rush towards "better living through chemistry [and machines]". While I have strong sympathies for the smaller local fisherpeople, the industrialization of ocean exploitation harms us all in a very big way. Ignorance is not bliss, quite the reverse! Time to stop condemning knowledge and get some wisdom. The oceans should be used in a sustainable way, not to profit most especially the biggest playahs in the greed stakes.

And it's always about the money, never about the fact that this planet is our only home and that alone should justify protecting it and preserving it for future generations.

To rape and pillage the United States is the goal of the GOP. The consequences will outlive the thieves.

We need to remove a real threat to the US, trump's poodle Zinke, rather than remove protection from National Monuments that are actually of real value to the US.

I teach a college course in sustainability. While I try to balance good news/bad news, my students are often shocked to learn the nature and extent of the bad news, among it, the loss of biodiversity, species habitat, species extinction. Last week, following a discussion when I asked them about their futures, and what, if anything they would do to protect their futures and the futures of their children, reactions were mixed. But reading this article today, and every other modest protection that has been undone since January in the totally cynical and short-sighted workings of the Trump administration, a more realistic question might be, why bother? If the hundreds of thousands, more likely millions, of hours people inside and outside of government have devoted to studying the environment and drafting safeguards to protect it can be undone with the flick of a pen, why bother?

Why do we allow commercial fishing? We ended free-market hunting in the 19th century. Imagine if we still allowed anyone to hunt and sell any animal. The ocean is no different, it does not have unlimited fecundity. And in the face of 9billion people who want to eat anything that swims we will be left with empty waters if we don't restrict or eliminate commercial fishing.

Clearly, we need court protections. Without those, we will endanger not only our waters and the life within those waters, but our entire globe.