Environmentalists' lawsuit challenges Trump's order to allow commercial fishing in Pacific monument
Environmentalists are challenging in court President Donald Trump 's executive order that they say strips core protections from the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument and opens the area to harmful commercial fishing.
On the same day of last month's proclamation allowing commercial fishing in the monument, Trump issued an order to boost the U.S. commercial fishing industry by peeling back regulations and opening up harvesting in previously protected areas.
The monument was created by President George W. Bush in 2009 and consists of about 500,000 square miles (1.3 million square kilometers) in the central Pacific Ocean. President Barack Obama expanded the monument in 2014.
A week after the April 17 proclamation, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service sent a letter to fishing permit holders giving them a green light to fish commercially within the monument's boundaries, even though a long-standing fishing ban remains on the books, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Honolulu.
The first longline fisher started fishing in the monument just three days after that letter, according to Earthjustice, which has been tracking vessel activity within the monument using Global Fishing Watch.
The Department of Justice declined to comment Friday.
The lawsuit noted that commercial longline fishing, an industrial method involving baited hooks from lines 60 miles (96.5 kilometers) or longer, will snag turtles, marine mammals or seabirds that are attracted to the bait or swim through the curtain of hooks.
'We will not stand by as the Trump administration unleashes highly destructive commercial fishing on some of the planet's most pristine, biodiverse marine environments,' David Henkin, an Earthjustice attorney, said in a statement. 'Piling lawlessness on top of lawlessness, the National Marine Fisheries Service chose to carry out President Trump's illegal proclamation by issuing its own illegal directive, with no public input.'
Designating the area in the Pacific Ocean to the south and west of the Hawaiian islands as a monument provided 'needed protection to a wide variety of scientific and historical treasures in one of the most spectacular and unique ocean ecosystems on earth,' the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit added that allowing commercial fishing in the monument expansion harms the 'cultural, spiritual, religious, subsistence, educational, recreational, and aesthetic interests' of a group of Native Hawaiian plaintiffs who are connected genealogically to the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
26 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Why real-life Baby Reindeer stalker fears she's about to DIE. Brutal twist in Richard Gadd court case as surprise witnesses are revealed and her lawyer gives BARBARA DAVIES heartbreaking update: 'She's the victim'
The truth, as Oscar Wilde once wrote, is rarely pure and never simple. And if evidence were ever needed to back this up, you need look no further than the ongoing saga that is Baby Reindeer, the Netflix drama still proving to be as gripping off screen as it was when it first aired in April 2024.
The Independent
32 minutes ago
- The Independent
US job openings rose in April, signaling resilience in the American labor market
U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in April, showing that the labor market remains resilient in the face of uncertainty arising from President Donald Trump's trade wars. The Labor Department reported Tuesday that employers posted 7.4 million job vacancies in April, up from 7.2 million in March. Economists had expected openings to drift down to 7.1 million. But the number of Americans quitting their jobs— a sign of confidence in their prospects — fell, and layoffs ticked higher. And in another sign the job market has cooled from the hiring boom of 2021-2023, the Labor Department reported one job every unemployed person. As recently as December 2022, there were two vacancies for every jobless American. Openings remain high by historical standards but have dropped sharply since peaking at 12.1 million in March 2022, when the economy was still roaring back COVID-19 lockdowns. The Labor Department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary showed little evidence of cuts to the federal workforce by billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. Openings for federal jobs rose to 134,000 in April from 121,000 in March. And federal layoffs fell to 4,000 from 8,000 in March and 19,000 in February. Although it has decelerated, the American job market has remained resilient in the face of high interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve in 2022 and 2023 to fight a resurgence of inflation. The economic outlook is uncertain, largely because of Trump's economic policies — huge taxes on imports, purges of federal workers and the deportation of immigrants working in the United States illegally. Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, said the JOLTS report shows that companies are waiting to see how Trump's policies play out. 'Once companies are more certain that bad times are coming, they will start to shed workers,' he wrote in a commentary. 'However, the economy is still near full employment. We suspect companies are still hoarding workers until they are very, very sure about an economic downturn.″ The Labor Department is expected to report Friday that employers added 130,000 jobs last month, down from 177,000 in April. The unemployment rate is expected to stay at a low 4.2%, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet.
The Sun
32 minutes ago
- The Sun
Transgender athlete, 17, tells critics to ‘get a life' as they are booed after winning girl's state track race
TRANSGENDER athlete Veronica Garcia has told their detractors to "get a life" after being booed at a state track championship in Washington. The 17-year-old blew away their 400m rivals by a whole second and played a big role in their East Valley of Spokane team-mates winning the 4x100m relay race. For the second year in a row, Garcia, the first transgender athlete in the state of Washington to win a track title, was heckled by track goers. The Seattle Times claims scores of attendees booed when Garcia - who is permitted to compete against biological females as students in Washington state can participate in sports based on their gender identity - stood on the podium after cheering loudly for their counterparts. That wasn't the only backlash Garcia had to deal with as a man wearing a 'Save women's sports' t-shirt - shouted: "Let go, girls!" The man, who made his feelings known during the warm-up, also shouted: "Girls' race!" Garcia fully "expected" to be hounded given the reception they received last year. But unlike last year, they had a defiant message for the minority in attendance who targeted them. Garcia said: "It maybe didn't have their intended effect. "It made me angry, but not angry as in, I wanted to give up, but angry as in, I'm going to push. 2 "I'm going to put this in the most PG-13 way, I'm just going to say it's a damn shame they don't have anything else better to do. "I hope they get a life. But oh well. It just shows who they are as people." Garcia could care less about her critics, insisting: "I'm really proud of myself. "I did what I came to do, and that's good enough for me." Garcia pipped Lauren Matthew to victory in the 400m, although their rival insisted they were the "real champion" with a homemade sign. Garcia also had to endure a rival school wearing tees which read 'Keep Women's Sports Female' before and after the 4x400m relay.
