Environmentalists' lawsuit challenges Trump's order to allow commercial fishing in Pacific monument

Key Points

• Environmental groups filed a lawsuit in Honolulu federal court challenging President Trump’s April 17 executive order that removes core protections and opens the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument to commercial fishing.
• The monument, originally created by President George W. Bush in 2009 and expanded by President Obama in 2014, spans about 500,000 square miles of central Pacific Ocean.
• Just days after the order, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a letter green-lighting commercial longline fishing within the monument, and vessels began operations three days later.
• Plaintiffs warn that industrial longline methods will snag turtles, marine mammals and seabirds, and harm the cultural, subsistence and spiritual interests of Native Hawaiian communities.

HONOLULU (AP) — 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.

Johnston Atoll, the closest island in the monument, is about 717 nautical miles (1,328 kilometers) west-southwest of Hawaii.