the environment save Groups express big concerns Donald TrumpRecently advertisement To reflect hunting regulations across the Pacific Islands, a naval patriotic monument, a federal area protected in the center of the Pacific Ocean, about 500,000 square miles.
As one of the most virgin trivial marine environments in the world, the memorial is now at risk after Trump’s decision last week to launch American commercial fishing in the region with long -term environmental consequences.
Prescribed Written by George W. Bush in 2009 and expanded Written by Barack Obama in 2014, the memorial It includes Seven islands and federal protection, in addition to 165 carrots of the underwater mountains are the hot points of biological diversity.
In addition to being home to many threatened, endangered and exhausted species, including 22 species of marine birds, green turtles and helicopters, giant invalids, parrot thickness, dolphins and whales, the monument contains healing ecosystems surrounding some ancient coral colonies in the world.
It is also home to Malakman Reef, the most annoying coral reefs in the United States. according to UNESCO, Kingman Reef has the largest percentage of predators for any ecosystem for coral reefs studied in the world. It hosts many types of sharks roaming, including gray sharks, as well as oceanic white tips, hammer heads and silk sharks – all of them Extend Highly important Environmental balance.
Trump advertisement – any American Samoa Tuna pressure groups He strongly called-allowing ships to flutter the United States commercially hunting within 50 to 200 nautical miles from the monument borders. Advertising – which comes more than 80 % of the world’s coral reefs has been beaten before The worst global bleaching event On the record – The Minister of Commerce, Howard Lottenic, also directs to “amend or cancel all the exhausting regulations that restrict commercial hunting” in the region.
As part of his endeavor to Make The United States, “the leader of the dominant seafood in the world”, Trump The name The regulations are “very terrible and very stupid”, saying that the American fishermen “are forced to go and travel from four to seven days to go and hunt in a not good area.”
David Henkin, the lawyer for the Earthjustice Group, a lawyer for the Environmental Preservation Group, has made Trump’s allegations that federal regulations hinder American fishermen.
“When he says that the people of Fisher from the American Hawaiian or Samoa need to travel for several days to go to the fish. Well, you need to travel for several days to get to this distance Pacific Islands. They are some remote places on the face of the earth … and they are definitely not next to Hawaii. “
according to A study conducted in 2023, in the past five years, has spent only 0.52 % of their effort to hunt in the two fields, where commercial fishing is currently allowed in the Pacific Islands.
Eching similar feelings like Henkin, David McGuer, founder of the shark protection group, said: “It is great … These fishermen do not travel 2000 or 3000 miles … They are already there, four or five hundred miles. There is no incentive for them to go to the central islands.”
Environmental experts also refer to Trump Group fire Through the National Administration of Oceanic and Air Country – which manages the memorial – as well as its efforts to put the best scientific agencies of the federal government on a “The Path of Science”.
“You will not have employees, and you will not have knowledge and will not have administrative biologists in Washington or anywhere else in universities funded by national fish fisheries or Noa.”
Other concerns surrounding the environmental effect of advertising are the potential rise in illegal hunting as well as hunting. research It has been shown that illegal and unorganized fishing represents one in five fish caught in the wild.
“The presence of legal commercial fisheries provides cover for illegal fishing. If you only see a fishing boat that runs through the water, you do not monitor what they are hunting.”
Moreover, although sharks play an important role in preserving healthy ecosystems, more than 100 m Subordinate Often animals They are killed every year as part of fishing and shark.
Douglas McCalli, a professor of marine biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, warned that the advertisement could have profound effects on preserving the shark. He said: “You can pick up a lot of tuna you want, but you also hunt and kill many sharks.”
It is necessary to ride nutrients, control invasive species, as well as reduce diseases, that sharks are present for more than 450 million years. However, Trump’s advertisement can quickly back down from years of shark in just minutes. “If you open a portion of the oceans that contain all these long -term sharks, you can go 100 years of conservation in nearly 15 minutes of hunting because it takes a long time for these sharks to apostasy and reassemble their residents.”
Other marine animals at risk in the monument are sea turtles. With six types of seven international turtles It is classified like Threatened All over the world due to human activity, many come to the islands to feed around coral reefs.
However, Trump’s advertisement endangers them in different ways, as Mozouli said: “Either they take a hook and bite to the hook or drown because they cannot breathe in long fisheries, or they are avoided and drown in the context of fishing.”
Speaking to the Guardian, Suleiman Kahhohla, one of the elderly and the leader in Hawaii, with the coalition of the Pacific Island Heritage, which calls for the monument, pointed to the bonding of the islands with the broader ocean.
He said: “It is an integrated type of ecosystem that the islands themselves are not only with …
For environmental experts, in addition to fragile ecosystems, Trump’s advertisement will negatively affect the long -term American fishermen, which leads to high prices of seafood for American consumers.
research It has shown over and over again Benefits of shrinkage From large marine protected areas, including increases in fishing rates outside the regions. The opening of the commercial hunting monument will be what Hemville describes as the “opposite effect” of the Trump administration.
“The current administration has its mentality of” Let’s become the greatest producer of seafood. “But if you take everything, you are superior to collapse and population.
Likewise, kaho’ohalahalaa He said: “The opening of this holy place for short -sighted exploitation is not considered the current or future generations of the Pacific Ocean who depend on a healthy environment, and they know this special area of the ocean as the homeland of our ancestors.”
With interests related to the escalation of the Trump administration’s environmental impact, marine experts urge the public to consider the environmental and cultural importance of marine areas that resemble national parks.
“It is a special part of America … it seems as if we have just allowed commercial hunting in a place like Yellowston,” said Mokuli.
