Marine sanctuaries work

I like to eat fish. So on Friday, I got a takeout lunch with fried parrot fish and titiyas. As usual, I set it in the middle of the table at work, offering to share with all. Eventually, one of my co-workers came by and said something to me about how delicious the fish was. Yes, I completely agreed.

Then he started teasing me about how I was eating fish from the sanctuary. He knows that I support the creation of a national marine monument. I thought he was joking. But no, he insisted, the fish I had purchased and was enjoying so much had come from Mañagaha sanctuary, he said. It’s a type of yellow parrot fish, and you just can’t find it anymore in our waters, except in the sanctuary.

I believe him. He’s an avid fisherman, and respectful of the sanctuaries. If he says that fish was caught illegally, I think it really was. And I was eating it. And it made me feel guilty—that fish I was eating should have still been alive and contributing to the creation of more fish and helping to restore the damaged eco-systems around our island.

Then I started getting angry. Who would fish in the Mañagaha sanctuary? And why? My co-worker had some answers to those questions, too. Who—fishermen who thought they wouldn’t get caught and who don’t respect conservation. He said our local CNMI enforcement officers can’t keep watch 24 hours a day. We don’t have the means to do this. And why—because the sanctuaries have allowed fish populations to come back, while these same fish have been fished out in the rest of our ocean.

It made me think some more about my position on the proposal to create a national marine monument in the northern waters around Asuncion, Maug, and Uracas. It’s very obvious that sanctuaries do work—they protect environments and allow ecosystems to stay healthy or recover. That’s why there are more fish in our local sanctuaries than in the surrounding waters where fishing is not restricted. They’re good.

And the CNMI, despite it’s pride and desire for self-government and as little federal “intervention” as possible, just can’t protect the waters alone. We can’t even protect our local sanctuaries sufficiently. We need help.

If we designate the waters around our three northernmost islands as a national monument, they’ll be a sanctuary. We’ll still have the problem of enforcing restrictions. But we’ll be in a better position to argue for more help than we’re currently getting. The U.S. Coast Guard does some monitoring and enforcement (and catches some foreign fishing poachers), but the CNMI could team up with them, and also argue for more funding, more enforcement monitoring, more patrol ships in the monument waters.

I support the proposal to designate a Marianas Trench National Marine Monument; then we could protect and save the ecosystems there. We could have healthy marine environments that start to restore our oceans. And eventually, we might see some spillover of the fish and other sea creatures, into the waters where our fishermen can legally fish.

And I’ll still enjoy eating fish, and from now on, they’ll be legally caught fish.
[B] Jane Mack[/B] [I]via e-mail[/I]