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The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WPRFMC) acknowledges that the President’s amended Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM) expansion plan reduces the economic toll the original plan would have taken on sustainable US Pacific Island fisheries. The announcement of the final plan comes after months of the WPRFMC expressing serious concern for a sudden, unilateral proposal from the White House to expand the monument.

The WPRFMC expresses appreciation to President Obama for considering the economic and cultural concerns of American citizens, particularly in Hawaii and American Samoa, who will be most affected by the expansion.

According to the WPRFMC, these revisions will allow U.S. fishermen to continue their operations within traditional fishing grounds under existing regulations in 35 percent of the US EEZ around the US Pacific Remote Islands, but will remove them completely in 65 percent of the US EEZ around these islands.

“Our US Pacific Island fishermen already comply with the strictest regulations in the world,” said Kitty Simonds, WPRFMC executive director.

She added, “We appreciate the White House’s compromise on a monument expansion that could have devastated our region’s fisheries and communities without notable environmental benefits. We now look to see how this declaration will be achieved in practice, beyond paper and politics, and hope that the US Coast Guard will use additional enforcement funds to patrol US waters as a first priority.”

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