Lawsuit challenges Trump order that opens protected marine monument to commercial fishing

Kapaʻa, the Conservation Council for Hawaiʻi and the Center for Biological Diversity, represented by Earthjustice, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Friday, challenging its actions to open the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument to commercial fishing.

The groups are challenging President Donald Trump’s April 17 proclamation that would allow U.S.-flagged vessels to fish commercially in an area long preserved to protect marine ecosystems, as well as steps taken by the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service (Fisheries Service) to implement that proclamation.

The Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, formerly known as the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, was established by President George W. Bush in 2009 and expanded by President Barack Obama in 2014.

The Trump administration seeks to strip vital protections that President Obama put in place in 2014, when he expanded the monument’s boundaries to include the waters 200 nautical miles around Jarvis Island, Wake Island, and Johnston Atoll, banning commercial fishing in those waters.

“The islands within the monument are part of Moananuiākea, a term used to describe the Pacific Ocean and its connection to Hawaiian culture, traditions, and values,” said Solomon Pili Kahoʻohalahala, founding member of Kapaʻa. “The practice of commercial fishing and the unavoidable and significant waste of marine resources caused by bycatch is an affront to Native Hawaiian practices and beliefs. President Trump’s proclamation threatens the ability of future generations to survive and thrive.”

On April 25, the Fisheries Service sent a letter to fishing permit holders giving them the green light to fish commercially within the monument’s boundaries, even though the monument protections implementing the longstanding fishing ban remain on the books.

“President Trump’s proclamation threatens to destroy one of the world’s last healthy and wild ocean ecosystems,” said Jonee Peters of the Conservation Council for Hawaiʻi. “Commercial fishing would remove large numbers of fish, sharks, turtles, and other marine life as both intended catch and unintended by-catch. This would completely disrupt the underwater ecosystem and wreak havoc on the food chain.”

“Many of these creatures and areas are culturally important to the people of Oceania, for traditional and modern navigation, and as a valuable food source,” Peters continued.

Both Trump’s initial proclamation and the successive actions by the Fisheries Service violate the law.

Even short-term commercial fishing can inflict long-term, irreparable harm on the pristine marine environment. The monument’s ban on commercial fishing ultimately protects scientific and historical treasures in one of the most unique ocean ecosystems on Earth.

The monument’s protections secure these major reservoirs of biodiversity and their populations, improving their resiliency against climate change. Several million seabirds congregate around or nest in the monument, and the waters are a habitat for 22 species of protected and marine mammals, including five species of threatened or endangered sea turtles, like the leatherback, that feed and migrate.

“Trump’s illegal move is a direct assault on the Pacific’s cultural heritage and biodiversity, and we won’t let one of the ocean’s last truly wild places be gutted for short-term profit. These waters are a climate refuge for a host of endangered species, some of which are found nowhere else on Earth,” said Maxx Phillips, Hawaiʻi Pacific Islands director and staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “For generations Pacific Islanders have revered these ocean areas as sources of food, knowledge, and spiritual connection. Dismantling these protections threatens not only marine life but the cultural practices that are inseparable from this place. These waters deserve protection, not plunder.”