President Donald Trump’s push to roll back commercial fishing restrictions in marine national monuments advanced this week when a NOAA advisory council recommended permitting fishing in four Pacific ocean monuments.
The decision by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council to move toward scraping the prohibitions on commercial fishing would align policy with Trump’s April 17 executive order requiring the Commerce and Interior departments to “review all existing marine monuments and provide recommendations to the President of any that should be opened to commercial fishing.”
The council directed its staff to “prepare an analysis of management options to implement” the executive order to be presented at the council’s next meeting in December.
“The analysis … will ensure sustainable harvest of fishery resources while conserving protected species and monument resources,” the council said in a statement announcing its action.
