May 27, 2025 — Environmentalists are challenging in court President Donald Trump’s executive order that they say strips core protections from the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument and opens the area to harmful commercial fishing.
On the same day of last month’s proclamation allowing commercial fishing in the monument, Trump issued an order to boost the U.S. commercial fishing industry by peeling back regulations and opening up harvesting in previously protected areas.
The monument was created by President George W. Bush in 2009 and consists of about 500,000 square miles (1.3 million square kilometers) in the central Pacific Ocean. President Barack Obama expanded the monument in 2014.
A week after the April 17 proclamation, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service sent a letter to fishing permit holders giving them a green light to fish commercially within the monument’s boundaries, even though a long-standing fishing ban remains on the books, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Honolulu.