NOAA is putting commercial fishing ahead of conservation

“We congratulate NOAA Fisheries and the Trump Administration for these new efforts and stand as a resource as the agency begins implementation,” said Lisa Wallenda Picard, president and CEO of NFI.

Geographically, the most significant proposal is to fast-track the expansion and introduction of new commercial fishing operations at the Mariana Trench, Papahānaumokuākea, Rose Atoll, and Pacific Remote Islands national monuments.

These four protected areas currently shield “some of the last remaining relatively pristine ocean ecosystems,” according to NOAA.

Covering over 1.1 million square miles—an area almost double the size of Alaska—these habitats are home to millions of acres of coral reef and endemic species found nowhere else in the world, such as the Mariana snailfish and the Hawaiian pigfish.

Other backsliding includes applying new Endangered Species Act reforms that rescind longstanding interpretation of “harm,” and reducing the use of the conservation standards of Habitat Areas of Particular Concern in regulatory actions to “ensure protections are balanced with economic interests.”

“Regulation is the backbone of sustainable fisheries management,” said Janet Coit, the former director of NOAA Fisheries under President Joe Biden. “I worry about what [circumventing science-based limits] will do to the fish populations that future generations are counting on us to steward responsibly.”

When asked for comment on these issues, a spokesperson for NOAA told Inside Climate News that “the best available information” could be found in the press release. “We are moving away from regulations that treat domestic harvesters like a problem to be managed, and toward a science-based, common-sense system,” NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Eugenio Piñeiro Soler wrote in the announcement.

The agency did not respond to direct questions regarding what scientific protections will be kept in place and whether NOAA Fisheries now prioritizes commercial profits over environmental stewardship.

For Coit, who directed the previous administration’s seafood strategy and believes “100 percent” in supporting and promoting US seafood, short-term efforts to roll back protections miss the mark: “With climate change impacts reshaping our ocean ecosystems, now is not the time to avert our eyes and just go fish.”

Johnny Sturgeon is a London-based reporter covering fisheries and aquaculture. Joining us from the Outlaw Ocean Project, he has experience producing in-depth maritime investigations for nonprofit newsrooms. A former boatbuilder, he holds a BA in History & Politics from the University of Oxford and an MS from Columbia Journalism School.

This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News.