The third installment of the Our Ocean forum will convene in Washington, D.C., this week and the betting window is open on whether the Obama administration will use the event to announce the designation of new National Marine Monuments.
No one — neither conservationists nor fishing stakeholders — claims to know exactly what will happen when the two-day, international event opens Thursday. But it has not escaped anyone’s attention that the Obama administration has used the same forum in the past to make similar announcements.
“The short answer is that I don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Peter Shelley, senior counsel and interim president of the Conservation Law Foundation. “The Obama administration has been really playing this one close to the vest. But this is the sort of opportunity the White House has used in the past to announce monuments.”
