Trump Opens Marine National Momentums to Commercial Fishing - Conservation Legal Group Fight Back
The Pacific National Marine Monuments that the Trump Administration and NOAA have opened to Commercial Fishing. Image source: Hawaii Public Radio
Imagine a place 130 miles off Cape Cod where ancient corals cling to underwater mountains and sperm whales feed in canyons that drop thousands of feet into the dark. No trawlers. No longlines. This monument serves as a critical biodiversity hotspot and buffer against climate change in the Atlantic, with unique underwater geology featuring three deep submarine canyons and four extinct volcanoes that drive massive ecological benefits.
That place is the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument — the Atlantic’s only marine monument, protecting nearly 5,000 square miles of some of the most extraordinary deep-sea habitat in the country. Or it was, until February 2026, when President Trump signed a proclamation removing the ban on commercial fishing within the monument’s boundaries.
It didn’t stop there. The administration has since rolled back protections across three additional Pacific monuments — the Mau and Hoʻomalu Zones of Papahānaumokuākea, the Islands Unit of the Mariana Trench, and Rose Atoll — areas established to safeguard some of the most ecologically sensitive and culturally significant ocean habitats under US jurisdiction.
The numbers are staggering. Papahānaumokuākea alone is home to more than 7,000 marine species, over a quarter of which are found nowhere else on Earth, and more than 31 are already listed as threatened or endangered. Rose Atoll hosts approximately 97% of American Samoa’s entire seabird population. These aren’t abstract statistics — they’re living systems that took millions of years to build.
The legal argument for stripping these protections is shaky at best. Conservation organizations say the administration is overstepping — that a president cannot simply dismantle monument protections put in place by predecessors. Earthjustice has vowed to take legal action, with one of its attorneys pointing out that US-based fisheries already hit their catch limits for tuna every year without fishing inside the monuments. Courts have already pushed back: a federal judge ruled that commercial fishing cannot legally continue in the Pacific Islands Heritage monument, where similar rollbacks were attempted in 2025.
The fight is far from over. And that’s where you come in.
What you can do right now:
• Sign the petition at Greater Good urging officials to restore protections for Northeast Canyons and Seamounts. https://greatergood.com/blogs/petitions/northeast-canyons-petition?srsltid=AfmBOoqiPrHBpiw9UWlsn7mCmAHmGym8aCulXqfR9RCCmdgIht5eUKHC
• Donate to Earthjustice, the NRDC, or the Conservation Law Foundation — the groups carrying the legal fight in court. https://earthjustice.org/ https://www.nrdc.org/ https://www.clf.org/
• Contact your senators and representatives and tell them you want the Antiquities Act respected and our marine monuments protected. https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member
• Share this story. Tag your representatives. Make some noise.
Marine monuments are the ocean’s insurance policy — slow-recovery refuges that make everything around them healthier. Opening them to commercial fishing isn’t a fisheries strategy. It’s a giveaway.
The courts are listening. Make sure Congress does too.
