Trump signs executive order ending years of protections in Pacific monument

[Demovictory9]

https://www.sfgate.com/hawaii/article/trump-order-hawaii-pacific-monument-fishing-20284449.php

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday that seeks to open up 400,000 square miles of ocean southwest of Hawaii to commercial fishing, a move local groups see as “short-sighted” and harmful for a vast ecologically and culturally significant stretch of the Pacific.

The proclamation was signed along with a broader executive order aimed at making the United States “the world’s dominant seafood leader” by reversing commercial fishing regulations and expanding fishing permit programs in U.S.-controlled waters. The order effectively ends commercial fishing prohibitions in the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, a coral-rich section of the Pacific roughly halfway between Hawaii and American Samoa. The monument was established by President George W. Bush in 2009, then expanded by President Barack Obama in 2014.

[kimbutgar]

1. Something tells me a court order will stop this insane shit

The people of Hawaii do not want this and will fight back !

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. I don't get it. How does

“a coral-rich section of the Pacific roughly halfway between Hawaii and American Samoa”get to be a US national monument?

[Igel]

3. Apparently there are atolls and other specks of land there.

The monument also isn't a continguous, cohesive thing--it's a set of refuges (and maybe other ocean surface?).

https://www.fws.gov/national-monument/pacific-islands-heritage-marine