The concept behind the proposal

Jim Davies wrote that he has yet to see “Pew supporters offer any substantial proof to the concept behind the project.”

1. We’re not “Pew supporters.” We’re Friends of the Monument, supporters of marine conservation, people who want to preserve and protect our natural world.

2. The concept behind the project has been written about extensively—it’s marine conservation. Some people have obviously missed all of the information that has been circulated throughout the CNMI about the benefits of marine conservation; information available not just recently, but for years. We have a lot of information about the state of our oceans and the benefits of marine sanctuaries, both from scientific studies and from our own experiences with the ocean.

3. The Marianas Trench Marine Monument project is essentially a project to have the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone waters around Uracas, Maug, and Asuncion declared a monument, making them a federally protected marine sanctuary. The CNMI Constitution has already made the islands themselves a CNMI land sanctuary. But the ecosystem, the water, and submerged land, the EEZ, is under U.S. control. The proposal, if adopted, would extend the same type of protection the CNMI has given to the islands into the waters, and provide for CNMI and U.S. co-management of the marine sanctuary and federal funding.

Here’s a very brief synopsis of the “concept behind the project”:

The world’s oceans are in rapid decline. The crisis of our oceans is likely to get worse: 77 percent of our oceans’ fisheries have already been fully exploited, or worse, overfished; or worse yet, exhausted, according to information from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Estimates by an international team of university research scientists over a four-year period concluded that by 2048, 90 percent of all (edible) marine life will be gone.

Overfishing is the main reason that our marine ecosystems are depleted, according to eminent scientists. And overfishing continues to deplete our oceans, despite the regulations and enforcement by WESPAC and other U.S. federal agencies and international efforts.

We need our marine life; it is the core of biodiversity. And it’s not inexhaustible. Fixing the regulatory system would help, but it is not enough alone. This is the concept of not putting all your eggs in one basket that Mike Trip has previously written about—we can’t trust just one method to deal with this very real crisis.

One of the few proven methods of species recovery and ecosystem protection is the creation of no-take ocean reserves, also known as sanctuaries and marine monuments.

All of these statements are easily supported by information that is readily available for any person who wants to be informed about marine sanctuaries and the need for protecting our ocean life. You can check out my blog, Saipanwriter.blogspot.com, for direct links that support each of these statements, or you can do your own research. Friends of the Monument, in their support for creating a national marine monument in our northernmost waters, aren’t making up anything new or suggesting some radical, unproven idea.

The proposal under consideration now for the CNMI is to create a no-take marine reserve around our three northernmost islands, and still allow fishing around all of the other islands. The Marianas Trench is a beautiful, almost pristine, and unique ecosystem that is worth protecting. Designating the waters around Uracas, Maug, and Asuncion as a National Marine Monument will make it a protected marine conservation area under NOAA sanctuaries program, with CNMI co-management (something we don’t have right now).

And voila! Because there already is a tremendous amount of scientific evidence that protected marine areas help conserve, preserve, and restore marine ecosystems, we can expect that our Marianas Trench Monument would have the same ecological, environmental effect.

That’s the “meat” of the proposal and the “substantial proof” of the concept behind it.

All other potential benefits—global recognition that will act as free advertising for our tourism industry, federal funds coming in here for a visitors center that could enhance the tourist experience and create jobs, scientific research that will add to our knowledge of our unique Marianas Trench, spillover education benefits from scientists present in the CNMI, etc.—are gravy. They appear to be logical and likely consequences of designation of a monument here.

But in essence, Friends of the Monument want to create a marine sanctuary, and that is a well-documented means of preserving and restoring healthy ecosystems; that is the proven concept behind the proposal. And that is why I support the Marianas Trench Marine Monument proposal.