With less than a week to go before President-elect Donald Trump returns to office, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration took action Wednesday to add a layer of protection for Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
Designating the waters around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands a national marine sanctuary would act as an insurance policy should Trump unilaterally undo the monument protections afforded to the area as he threatened to last time in office.
Although NOAA announced the designation ahead of Trump’s Monday inauguration, it must survive a 45-day congressional review period before it takes effect.
More than 120 uninhabited islands and atolls, deepwater seamounts and sprawling coral reefs teeming with wildlife constitute this 1,000-mile stretch of the archipelago, a multi-day boat ride from the Main Hawaiian islands.
“Today is a monumental day for Papahānaumokuākea, a day that has been in the making for over two decades to further strengthen the marine protections for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and fully implement the provision outlined in past presidential proclamations,” said Eric Roberts, NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries superintendent for Papahānaumokuākea.
The proposed sanctuary is home to 7,000 species, more than a quarter found nowhere else in the world.
President Bill Clinton created the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve in December 2000, making it the country’s largest nature preserve at the time, according to Rick Gaffney. Gaffney, a Big Island sport fisherman who served as a member of the reserve’s advisory council for over 20 years, said part of that mandate was to consider pursuing national marine sanctuary status for the area.
“I can affirm that sanctuary status was regularly considered, and hotly debated, even as monument status was overlaid on the original reserve,” he said.
Republican President George W. Bush first established Papahānaumokuākea as a national monument in 2006. Democratic President Barack Obama nearly quadrupled its size a decade later, making it the world’s largest protected place at the time.
A sanctuary designation doubles down on the monument’s ban on commercial fishing and mining, and its highly restricted access. It also adds an enforcement authority, giving NOAA the ability to create emergency regulations in any natural or human-caused disaster as well as assess civil penalties and hold those responsible accountable by recouping damages. That could bring in additional revenue to manage the monument.
Randy Kosaki, NOAA research ecologist for Papahānaumokuākea, said the sanctuary designation adds “a layer of stability” to the area’s protections.
“It takes an act of Congress to designate a sanctuary, but it also takes an act of Congress to un-designate a sanctuary,” he said, making it less likely to be reversed on “some ill-advised whim.”
Papahānaumokuākea made the Trump administration’s initial list of monuments to shrink or eliminate when he was president. Presidents have for generations established national monuments under the Antiquities Act, which lets them unilaterally declare them and unilaterally undo them. Trump shrunk Bears Ears National Monument in Utah by 85% but President Joe Biden restored it.
Critics, including Hawaiʻi’s commercial tuna fishermen, have long opposed protections for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, fighting the establishment of Papahānaumokuākea as a monument or a sanctuary. They say it adds bureaucracy and limits fishing grounds.
The Trump administration ended up leaving Papahānaumokuākea alone last time, but conservationists and Native Hawaiians who helped establish it have grown concerned that they won’t be so lucky next time around.
“We held our breath for four years under the first Trump administration and kept our heads low,” Kosaki said. “Will that work twice? I don’t know.”
The nearly 600,000-square-mile monument includes hundreds of downed planes from the Battle of Midway during World War II and sunken whaling ships that ran aground in the 1800s. Researchers continue to make new discoveries in the waters around these islands and atolls.
NOAA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Hawaiʻi Department of Land and Natural Resources and Office of Hawaiian Affairs co-manage Papahānaumokuākea, a joint effort that would continue for the sanctuary.
“National marine sanctuary designation will bring a stronger framework for marine conservation and protection to the waters of Papahānaumokuākea,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in a press release Tuesday. “The sanctuary will also facilitate scientific research, resource monitoring and coordinated efforts to ensure the long-term health of this natural, cultural and historically significant area.”
NOAA returned from its most recent three-week expedition in early October. Parts of the reef remain under siege from a mysterious invasive seaweed. Scientists revisited sites they’ve been monitoring for the past several years to see if it’s spreading and brought frozen samples back to their labs.
Scientists during the most recent expedition also went to East Island to check on its ongoing recovery. The tiny island, a critical nesting habitat for endangered seals and threatened sea turtles, was wiped off the map in 2018 by Hurricane Walaka. The island has partially re-emerged, and scientists saw evidence that these endemic species have started to return.
The monument includes cultural artifacts from Polynesian voyagers who discovered the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands around 1000 A.D.
Mokumanamana, some 450 miles northwest of O‘ahu, marks the crossroads between the living world, Ao, which includes the Main Hawaiian Islands to the south, and the spiritual world, Pō, which encompasses the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It is believed to have the highest density of ceremonial sites in the archipelago.
“The monument holds tangible and intangible resources,” said Kekuewa Kikiloi, a Hawaiian scholar and former cultural program coordinator for Papahānaumokuākea. “A huge part of it is just the place itself and what it means to the Native Hawaiian people and our spiritual beliefs. It’s a huge part of our history, the story of our origins and afterlife. All of that place is sacred to us.”
___
This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.