Saving Seafood

SEAN HORGAN: Interior Secretary visits, talks lobsters, monuments

June 18, 2017 — It certainly was a happening time in Boston this past weekend, what with the Sail Boston 2017 spectacle out in the harbor and beyond, as well as Dead & Company doing two nights at Fenway Park, Father’s Day and the royal visit by new Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Friday.

The visit by Zinke, who was on a four-day New England jaunt that included a tour of the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine, merely ratcheted up the already incendiary debate over the means used to designate the monuments and the value of the monuments themselves.

The Obama administration earlier removed Cashes Ledge, which sits about 80 miles off of Gloucester, from consideration as a possible site for the new national marine monument, so the local debate now centers on the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.

The monument, which encompasses roughly 4,900 square miles in an area south of Cape Cod, was designated last year by the Obama administration through the use of the Antiquities Act.

Now the Trump administration is reviewing all of the national monument designations since 1996 that cover more than 100,000 acres with an eye toward potentially reversing some or all.

On Friday, Zinke met with U.S Fish and Wildlife Service officials and officials from the New England Aquarium about marine wildlife around the monument. He then held a listening session with lobstermen and fishermen about the impact of the monument designation on their industry.

Meanwhile, a coalition of environmental groups held a rally at the Statehouse supporting the monument designations and urging the current administration to retain the protected areas.

This has evolved into an absolute zero-sum game and the divisions in this debate seem almost insurmountable. It’s hard to imagine anyone on either side willing to drop their swords in the name of compromise. They’re just too dug in.

Read the full opinion piece at the Gloucester Times

Interior secretary visits Mass. to review marine monument

June 19, 2017 — Editor’s Note: At the request of the Department of the Interior, Saving Seafood’s National Coalition for Fishing Communities helped facilitate a meeting between Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and over 20 representatives of the commercial fishing industry. The meeting also included staff members from the offices of Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI):

Capping off a four-day New England tour, US Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke visited Boston Friday to meet with local scientists and fishermen in his review of the East Coast’s only — and highly controversial — marine monument.

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, located approximately 130 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, covers more than 4,000 square miles. It includes three underwater canyons and four seamounts — mountains rising from the ocean floor —housing dozens of deep-sea corals and several species of endangered whales.

Former president Barack Obama proclaimed the area the country’s first marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean in September 2016. The Antiquities Act, signed into law in 1906 by national parks champion Theodore Roosevelt, grants presidents unilateral authority to establish national monuments on federal land.

But now, under President Trump, the fate of the underwater zone is in doubt.

Trump signed an executive order in April directing Zinke to review all national monuments designated over the past 21 years, calling the practice of using executive authority to designate such monuments an “abusive practice.”

Zinke met with scientists from the New England Aquarium and the Massachusetts marine monument’s superintendent from the US Fish and Wildlife Service in the morning, before heading to a roundtable with local fishermen.

“Right now, I’m in the information collection stage, so everything is on the table,” Zinke said.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Interior secretary set to visit Boston as enviros launch marine monument campaign

June 16, 2017 — When Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke visits the Boston area on Friday, environmentalists plan to greet him by rallying for the preservation of national monuments that are under review by the Trump administration.

The former Montana congressman has an 11 a.m. press event at a Legal Sea Foods location, according to his office. The Bay State visit could also afford the interior secretary a chance to meet with the state’s top Republican, Gov. Charlie Baker, although nothing has been announced.

The fishing industry opposed President Barack Obama’s 2016 designation of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument on a roughly 4,900 square-mile area south of Cape Cod. The Obama administration had earlier removed Cashes Ledge, which sits about 80 miles off of Gloucester, from consideration as a possible site for the new national marine monument.

State Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matt Beaton told the News Service in May that he hopes there will be modifications to the Seamounts monument, which restricts fishing in the area about 150 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, but did not specify his preferences.

Environmentalists worry the review ordered by President Donald Trump in April could be a precursor to rolling back restrictions on natural lands and waters.

According to a Zinke press aide, the secretary on Friday will meet with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials and officials from the New England Aquarium about marine wildlife around the monument. The secretary will then attend a roundtable meeting with lobstermen and fishermen about the impact of the monument designation on their industry.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Fishermen lawsuit against marine monument to progress slowly

June 9, 2017 — A fishermen group’s lawsuit against the creation of a marine monument off New England is likely to progress slowly while the federal government reviews national monuments around the country.

President Barack Obama created the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in September using executive authority. A coalition of fishing groups filed a lawsuit challenging its creation in federal court in March.

Since then, President Donald Trump has ordered the review of more than two dozen national monuments, including the marine monument. Attorneys for the fishermen who sued say their case is likely to proceed slowly since it could be made irrelevant by Trump’s review of the monuments.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald

Fishermen hoping to reel in Obama-era conservation

May 31, 2017 — New England fishermen are looking for a seat at the table as the Trump administration mulls whether to make any adjustments to an Obama-era marine monument off Cape Cod that has drawn criticism for the potential impact on the fishing industry.

“The monument was put in place with probably less than full input by the fisheries’ people,” New England Fishery Management Council Chairman Dr. John Quinn said. “In reviewing it, we should be included in this process.”

Quinn is one of eight signatories of a letter drafted earlier this month and sent to Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur L. Ross Jr. asking the Trump administration to consult with the nation’s eight regional fishery management councils before taking any action.

Trump signed an executive order last month calling for a review of national monument designations made under the Antiquities Act since Jan. 1, 1996. The order, dated May 1, calls for an interim report to the president within 45 days and a final report within 120 days.

The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, created by former President Barack Obama last September, protects an area roughly the size of Connecticut 130 miles off the coast of Cape Cod.

Read the full story at the Boston Herald

MAINE: Fishermen support alternative coral protection plan

May 26, 2017 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — A plan to protect deep sea coral from damage caused by fishing drew strong support from Maine’s lobstermen Thursday but mostly because planned fishing restrictions won’t affect them.

The New England Fishery Management Council has spent much of the past two years developing an “Omnibus Deep-Sea Coral Amendment” aimed at reducing the potential impacts of fishing on corals found in extremely deep water along the Northeast coast. As part of the process, the council proposed several alternatives that would prohibit all fishing in the affected areas. One plan would bar fishing in water depths ranging between 300 and 600 meters (about 985 to 1,970 feet). Another would ban fishing in 20 separate submarine canyons off the southern boundary of Georges Bank.

Some of those canyons lie within the boundaries of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument established by President Barack Obama last September.

While most of the areas that could be protected lie far offshore, two areas are situated within the Gulf of Maine. One is near Mount Desert Rock. The other is on Outer Schoodic Ridge.

Mount Desert Rock lies about 20 miles south of Mount Desert Island in Lobster Management Zone B. The council considered two alternative protection zones, primarily southwest of the rock, one of about 18 square miles and the other about 8 square miles, with water depths of 100 to 200 meters (330 to 660 feet).

The Outer Schoodic Ridge area lies about 25 miles southeast of MDI in Lobster Management Zone A. The protected area would be about 31 square miles in size.

Both areas are important lobster fishing grounds.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

Northeast marine monument under review, Massachusetts officials hoping for modifications

May 24, 2017 — The state’s top environmental official hopes the Trump administration modifies President Barack Obama’s 2016 designation of a marine monument area off the Massachusetts coast, which is on the Trump administration’s list of areas under review.

“Yeah, I think modified in the sense that it echoes what we put forward in our original comment letter, recognizing the work that went into the ocean managment plan and the public process around this issue,” Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matt Beaton told the News Service.

Environmental protection activists last year applauded Obama’s decision, made under powers granted through the Antiquities Act, to create the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument covering a more than 4,900 square mile area southeast of Cape Cod. The designation came with strict limits on fishing that were greeted with pushback from port communities and some elected officials, including Gov. Charlie Baker, whose administration knocked an alleged lack of public process, potential negative impacts on commercial fishing, and conflicts with existing marine fisheries planning processes.

An executive order issued by Trump on April 26 called for a review of all monument declarations made since Jan. 1, 1996 that cover more than 100,000 acres or where the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior determines that the designation “was made without adequate public outreach and coordination with relevant stakeholders.”

Read the full story at WWLP

SEAN HORGAN: Trump take on marine monuments may be good for Cashes Ledge

May 1, 2017 — Last week, President Trump’s declaration that his Interior Department will apply the gimlet eye to the newly designated protected areas — particularly those born of the dreaded single-organism parentage, Antiquitatum Actum — was quickly followed by reports that the prez found his new gig required more heavy lifting than expected.

It’s as if his emergence onto the ramparts of the hostilities over the widespread and autonomous creation of the national monuments areas by the Obama administration finally, utterly convinced Trump that being the fearless leader really is a beast.

Trump’s grand entrance should inflame the narrative even more (if that’s possible), re-energizing all of those city-states — conservationists, fishing stakeholders, energy and mining companies and local communities — spread across Gatsby’s dark fields of the republic.

It also might be better news for one New England area that wasn’t designated than it is for one that was.

Trump’s edict may or may not result in the rollback of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, also known as the New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts area, located about 150 miles off Cape Cod.

Read the full opinion piece at the Gloucester Times

Targeted monuments are on land, in sea

April 28, 2017 — President Trump’s call to review 24 national monuments established by three former presidents puts in limbo protections on large swaths of land that are home to ancient cliff dwellings, towering sequoias, deep canyons and ocean habitats where seals, whales and sea turtles roam.

Trump and other critics say presidents have lost sight of the original purpose of the law created by President Theodore Roosevelt that was designed to protect particular historical or archaeological sites rather than wide expanses. Here’s a quick look at five of the monuments on the list:

Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument:

Designated by President Barack Obama in September 2016, the Atlantic Ocean’s first marine national monument consists of nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains off the New England coast. The designation was widely praised by environmentalists as a way to protect important species and habitat for whales and sea turtles while reducing the toll of climate change.

The designation closed the area to commercial fishermen.

Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument:

This remote monument northwest of Hawaii’s main islands was created by President George W. Bush in 2006 and was quadrupled in size last year by President Obama. The nearly 583,000-square-mile safe zone for tuna, the endangered Hawaiian monk seal and thousands of other species is the world’s largest marine protected area, more than twice the size of Texas.

Obama pointed to the zone’s diverse ecology and cultural significance to Native Hawaiian and early Polynesian culture as reasons for expanding the monument.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

Trump review of national monuments includes New England Coral Canyons

Apri 27, 2017 — President Donald Trump’s latest executive order threatens newly won protections for an underwater national monument located 150 miles off the coast of Cape Cod.

With a stroke of a pen Wednesday, Trump ordered the Interior Department to review a number of monuments created by former President Obama under the Antiquities Act and identify ones that can be rescinded or resized as part of a push to open up more federal lands to drilling, mining and other development.

One of the monuments Obama created is the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, also known as the New England Coral Canyons and Seamounts area.

It is a massive undersea area where the continental shelf drops off into the deep waters of the Atlantic Ocean, In those deep waters, four extinct underwater volcanoes, called seamounts, provide habitat for a number of cold-water corals that are hundreds, and some thousands, of years old.

The ecosystem provides a breeding and feeding ground for a number of fish and other marine animals, including whales.

In an executive order signed on Sept. 15, Obama said, “These canyons and seamounts, and the ecosystem they compose, have long been of intense scientific interest.”

Read the full story at The Connecticut Mirror