While Rachel Carson is best known for her pivotal work, Silent Spring, the mother of our modern environmental movement was first and foremost a marine biologist in love with the ocean. From her 1952 National Book Award acceptance speech for her book, “The Sea Around Us”:
“The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities... If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.”
Somebody needs to get a copy of Ms. Carson’s prose to President Donald Trump.
This spring, the president issued two executive orders threatening 11 marine reserves: one directing a review of national monuments on land and at sea, and another ordering a second review of marine monuments and sanctuaries. These orders are a red flag to the public, as President Trump has effectively announced his intention to reduce protections and potentially allow oil drilling or commercial fishing in at least some of these pristine areas.
Our nation’s oceans are home to a vast array of breathtaking wildlife. From the sparkling waters surrounding the Hawai’ian Islands to the rugged beauty of the Northeastern Atlantic, these waters host a diversity of life.
Congress and past presidents, recognizing the inestimable value of ocean ecosystems, have established a network of marine sanctuaries and national marine monuments to protect our most sensitive marine environments from oil drilling, commercial fishing and other harmful activities.
Marine wildlife, including endangered species like green sea turtles, North Atlantic right whales and dozens of species of coral, find refuge within these protected areas. Seabirds, sharks and marine mammals flourish in these places.
People and coastal communities also benefit from monuments and sanctuaries. Everyone from birders to scuba divers enjoy the wonders of marine protected areas. And marine sanctuaries alone generate approximately $8 billion annually to ocean-dependent economies from recreation, tourism, fishing and research.
As goes the oceans, so goes us. But the Trump administration just doesn’t get it.
Marine sanctuaries and monuments are vital to innumerable species struggling to overcome myriad threats. Climate change and acidification plague our oceans, along with marine debris, sonar and seismic testing, overfishing and of course, oil drilling. These protective designations are a safety net for wildlife and ecosystems already contending with problems we’ve caused. Rescinding protections for these areas is not just short-sighted, it’s greedy and detrimental to future generations of Americans.
Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, designated in 2006 by President Bush and expanded last year by President Obama, is just one example of what we could lose under President Trump. There are more than 7,000 species in Papahānaumokuākea, one quarter of which are found only in the Hawaiian archipelago. From the Laysan albatross, finch and duck – some of the most endangered birds in the world – to the Hawaiian monk seal and honu (or green sea turtle), imperiled wildlife species find pristine marine, reef and island habitat in this critical reserve.
The Marianas Trench, Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll marine national monuments are also under review, along with six national marine sanctuaries. Four sanctuaries under review were established off the California coast, protecting vital habitat and California’s renowned beaches from offshore oil drilling and potential devastating oil spills. Another targeted sanctuary, Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, preserves historic ship wrecks in Lake Michigan.
But now that President Trump wants to open these precious places to unnecessary and potentially irreparable impacts, threatening species and habitats that we are still striving to understand.
Rachel Carson described the human threat to oceans in 1951:
“It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.”
If we want oceans full of life, we must continue to protect them. Without a voice of their own, wildlife cannot speak against the dangers they face.
We must be the voice for our ocean protected areas. Let’s make it clear that marine monuments and sanctuaries are too important to shrink or strip away.
Submit your comments to the Department of Commerce on marine national monuments and national marine sanctuaries here.