Saving Seafood

Trump restores commercial fishing in protected areas of Pacific Ocean

June 11, 2026 — President Donald Trump took action June 11 to restore commercial fishing within three of America’s marine national monuments in the Pacific Ocean, rolling back protections for areas that are considered pristine ocean ecosystems.

The White House said the move, reported first by USA TODAY ahead of Trump’s action, is aimed at boosting the U.S. fishing industry and lowering seafood prices for consumers.

At an Oval Office ceremony attended by fishermen, Trump signed a proclamation restoring federally managed commercial fishing access to portions of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (near Hawaii); the Islands Unit of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument (off the coast of Guam); and the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument (in American Samoa).

In all, the proclamation expands commercial fishing to about half a million square miles in the Pacific.

Read the full article at USA TODAY

Experts say ‘bare bones’ US laws are unfit to regulate nascent deep-sea mining industry

June 10, 2026 — The deep-sea mining industry could launch in the near future in U.S. federal waters. Yet legal experts and former government officials warn that the regulations that would govern this industry are outdated and lack important oversight provisions.

In April 2025, the Trump administration signaled its intention to enter the global race to mine the deep sea when it released an executive order calling for the development of the industry. Following the administration’s direction, in April 2026 the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) announced its plans to hold a series of seabed lease sales over the course of this year and into early next. The first one is slated for August in American Samoa, with subsequent lease sales planned for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) and Alaska. If these go forward, they could mark the first commercial lease processes for deep-sea mining anywhere in the world.

Critics say deep-sea mining could cause large-scale and irreversible damage to the marine environment, and some governments in areas slated for leasing have even taken steps to ban deep-sea mining. In 2024, the governor of American Samoa enacted a moratorium on seabed mining from its territorial waters, which extend 3 nautical miles (5.6 kilometers) from its shorelines. And this month, the governor of Guam, a self-governing territory that shares its exclusive economic zone with the CNMI, signed a bill into law that banned deep-sea mining in its nearshore waters and prohibited the use of its port, a vital hub for the Western Pacific region, for seabed mining activities. Opponents also argue that the U.S. government is rushing the process to initiate these lease sales.

Supporters of the industry, including representatives from deep-sea mining companies, say it would be minimally invasive and procure critical minerals, and that development is proceeding at an appropriate pace.

Tony Romeo, the CEO of a newly formed deep-sea mining company based in South Carolina called Eco Minerals, pointed out that the U.S. has been developing its interest in the deep-sea mining industry since the 1980s. “From an industry perspective, this has been such a slow process,” he told Mongabay.

Read the full article at Mongabay

Guam’s reef fishery plan focus on reefs, not on federal waters

April 21, 2026 — When the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council voted in March to restore commercial fishing in parts of four Pacific marine national monuments, the coverage that followed left one key figure on Guam with something to clarify.

Chelsa Muña, director of the Guam Department of Agriculture and Guam’s representative on the council, wants island residents to understand something that has gotten lost in the broader noise around Pacific fisheries: Guam’s Coral Reef Fisheries Management Plan covers coral reef fish only. Not bottom fish. Not pelagics. Reef fish.

“It is critical that the plan and any new guidelines and regulations only apply to coral reef fish,” Muña told The Guam Daily Post. “We are not addressing bottom fish or pelagic fish.”

That distinction matters because federal fishery regulations, including the council’s monument decisions, apply to bottomfish and pelagics in waters three to 200 nautical miles from shore. Guam’s territorial waters extend just three miles out. The two systems operate in separate jurisdictions and cover entirely different fish populations.

Read the full article at The Guam Daily Post

Guam draws a line in the ocean as feds push seabed mining closer to home

April 9, 2026 — With federal lease boundaries for deep-sea mining now stretching to within 46 miles of Guam’s coastline, island lawmakers and resource managers are pushing back, warning that without stronger local law and enforcement, the threat is no longer distant or theoretical.

Bill 253-38, introduced by Sen. Therese Terlaje and co-authored by five colleagues, would ban the extraction of seabed minerals from Guam’s territorial waters and block permits for related facilities or infrastructure. Following an April 1 public hearing, Terlaje said the bill will gain sharper teeth before it reaches the session floor.

The most immediate addition targets enforcement, a gap that drew concern from testifiers. “Any person who violates subsection (a) or (b) of this section shall be subject to a civil penalty of not less than $10,000 and not more than $50,000 per day for each day the violation continues,” Terlaje told The Guam Daily Post, citing language recommended by the Department of Agriculture.

The bill’s current port provision only allows the Guam Port Authority to act after receiving notice from a federal agency, a mechanism Department of Agriculture Director Chelsa Muna called neither systematic nor timely. She recommended empowering port officials to act on credible information and requiring vessels to certify compliance with extraction laws as a condition of entry.

“A mining company that cannot use Guam to resupply, crew change or stage equipment faces a fundamentally different operational calculation than one that can,” Muna said. “That leverage is real, and this bill should use it fully.”

Terlaje said denying logistical support from Guam, including port access and infrastructure, is central to the bill’s reach, even though jurisdiction stops at the three-mile territorial boundary.

Read the full article at The Guam Daily Post

Guam’s fish are disappearing; island scientists now have data to show how bad it really is

March 25, 2025 — Ask any fisher who has worked Guam’s nearshore reefs for more than a decade, and they’ll tell you the hauls are not what they used to be. The trips run longer. The big fish are scarcer. The catches come back smaller.

Now the numbers back them up.

Researchers Peter Houk and Brett Taylor of the University of Guam Marine Laboratory presented their findings last week at the 159th meeting of the Scientific and Statistical Committee of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council in Honolulu, putting hard data behind what island fishers have long suspected and driving some of the most sweeping proposed changes to Guam’s fisheries management in recent memory.

The two scientists merged nine different data sets spanning decades, including government creel surveys, university research, marine protected area monitoring and fishery-independent visual surveys. Rather than pit those sources against each other, as has historically happened when agencies and researchers disagreed on fish population trends, they combined them into what they called a consensus approach, letting all the data together tell the story.

“About 65% of them suggest a decline may have been occurring in one stock or another,” Houk told the committee. “Yet, despite that, over the past 15, even 20 years … there’s been management inaction.”

Read the full article at the Guam Daily Post

Guam fishers get their say on federal rules that govern their waters

March 17, 2026 — With fishing communities on Guam already watching federal officials eye their waters for potential deep-sea mineral extraction, a regional fishery council is heading to three villages to ask a different but connected question: are the federal rules that govern where and how island fishers work even making sense?

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, partnering with consulting firms Lynker and The Parnin Group, will hold three public meetings on Guam in mid-March to hear directly from fishers and residents about which federal fishery regulations they find confusing, burdensome or simply unnecessary.

Sessions were set for Monday, March 16 at the Dededo Village Community Center, 319 Iglesia Circle; Tuesday, March 17 at the Sinajaña Village Community Center, 117A Chalan Guma Yu’os; and Wednesday, March 18 at the Malesso Village Senior Center, 440 Chalan Joseph A Cruz Ave. Each runs from 6 to 8 p.m., and refreshments will be provided. A fourth session was scheduled for Friday evening in Saipan.

Amy Vandehey, the council’s education and outreach coordinator, said the review targets specific federal regulations that have long drawn scrutiny, among them the Guam Large Vessel Bottomfish Prohibited Area, the structure of bottomfish annual catch limits, and the friction between federal and territorial management systems that fishers who work both inshore and offshore waters have to navigate.

Read the full article at the Marians Variety

Legislature to hold hearing on opposition to deep-sea mining

December 30, 2025 — The Guam Legislature will hold a public hearing next week on a resolution that reaffirms the island’s call for a moratorium on deep-sea mining and objects to federal plans to lease waters near the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands for mineral extraction.

Sen. Therese Terlaje announced the hearing will take place Jan. 7 at 8:30 a.m. in the Guam Congress Building. The hearing will address Resolution 132-38, which has drawn support from 10 senators, including Sabina Flores Perez, Telo Taitague, Chris Barnett, Vice Speaker Tony Ada, William Parkinson, Vincent Borja, Joe San Agustin, Shelly Calvo, and Tina Muña Barnes.

The resolution targets a proposal from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management that seeks commercial leasing of roughly 35 million acres along the Mariana Islands chain for offshore deep-sea mining. Guam sits about 128 nautical miles from the proposed mining area.

According to the resolution, legislators find BOEM’s 60-day comment period insufficient for meaningful consideration from Guam residents who would bear environmental, cultural, and social consequences of the proposed mining. BOEM initially set a Dec. 12 deadline for public comments but granted a 30-day extension to Jan. 12 after Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero and CNMI Gov. David Apatang requested 120 days.

Read the full article at The Guam Daily Post

Trump admin eyes deep-sea mining in CNMI, 100-plus miles offshore Guam

November 20, 2025 — The federal government is eyeing a potential offshore mining project near the Mariana Trench, in an area around 128 nautical miles east of Saipan and around the same distance east of Guam, in response to executive orders from President Donald Trump.

Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Gov. David Apatang on Nov. 15 jointly asked for an additional 120-day extension on a comment period closing on Dec. 12.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, BOEM, announced on Nov. 10 a request for information seeking interest in commercial leasing for offshore mining operations near the CNMI and American Samoa.

Read the full article at Pacific Daily News

‘Harder to catch fish nowadays’: Fisheries management plan in the works for Guam

September 2, 2025 — “It’s harder to catch fish nowadays,” Leilani Sablan Naden, a biologist with the University of Guam Sea Grant, said during the 10th Assembly of Planners on Aug. 20 at Hyatt Regency Guam.

There have been recommendations to limit the catch by size or a ban on commercializing nighttime spearfishing.

Naden and fisheries supervisor Michael Dueñas from the Department of Agriculture’s Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources, DAWR, shared progress on Guam’s fisheries management plan during the assembly.

Guam is the least managed island in Micronesia, and the abundance and size of Guam’s fish stocks have gradually decreased for the past 20-plus years due to climate change, soil erosion and sedimentation, land-based pollutants, and overfishing, according to DAWR.

The following was released by the Pacific Daily News

Guam, CNMI marked as ‘critical habitats’ for threatened corals species

July 18, 2025 — Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, together with select areas of American Samoa, Hawaii and remote parts of the Pacific, have been designated as critical habitats for five threatened coral species.

The final rule, issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, states that 18 specific marine habitats in American Samoa, Guam, the CNMI, the Pacific Remote Island Areas, and Hawaii — encompassing a total of about 237 sq km — are named critical habitats pursuant to the Endangered Species Act.

NOAA denied the U.S Navy’s request to exclude the Ritidian Point Surface Danger Zone complex in Guam from critical habitat designation.

The final rule takes effect on August 14.

Critical habitats are areas occupied by endangered species and possess the physical or biological features essential to their conservation.

Areas designated “critical habitats” may require special management considerations or protection to support the recovery of endangered corals.

The designation does not create new restrictions that close off these areas.

Read the full article at Marianas Variety