August 26, 2016 — President Barack Obama will create the world’s largest protected marine area Friday by expanding Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, White House officials said Thursday.
The decision comes after several months of public debate that has often pitted commercial fishermen against conservationists. Their efforts at times felt like election campaigns, complete with TV advertisements and heavy lobbying of Hawaii legislators, governors past and present, restauranteurs and members of the state’s congressional delegation.
Obama plans to use the same executive authority under the Antiquities Act that President George W. Bush used in 2006 to unilaterally create the monument. The expansion will quadruple the area currently protected and make it almost as big as four Californias.
The president does not seem to have deviated from the proposal that U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii put forward in June, which called for adding the Office of Hawaiian Affairs as a co-trustee and slightly shrinking the area that was initially proposed to accommodate fishermen.