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Torres reiterates concerns with marine monument
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said yesterday that his May 3, 2016, letter to President Barack Obama on the proposed expansion of the marine conservation areas in Hawaii was to “share our story” with the CNMI’s own lagging marine monument.
Torres said he had talked with “some folks” in Hawaii who claimed the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument was being expanded for reasons “they don’t know why,” and that there was “no additional assistance or rationale for expanding it.”
Torres noted that during the creation of Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, “hundreds of millions of dollars, jobs, centers” were advertised to the CNMI.
“None of that has occurred. It is going on eight years,” Torres told reporters yesterday. The MTMNT was created in 2008.
“For me,” Torres added, “we are sharing our story here on I how felt how the monument was done. So my concern is, we have the Marianas Trench Monument that was done by president Bush [with] almost ten years now with almost nothing to show for. That’s my concern.”
Torres’ earlier letter asks Obama to also focus monuments in existence in order to fulfill the existing mandates of the Marianas monument, while the President considers the merits of expanding the monument in Hawaii.
“Protecting ocean resources is a necessary consideration, but so too is the follow through to complete what has already been started,” Torres said in the letter.
