There’s no fishing north of Pagan

This is the second in a series of letters about the Trump administration efforts to overturn marine monuments in the Pacific, particularly the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument. In this letter I will address local fishing.

It is important to discuss the current level of fishing issue right up front. When it comes to the area under discussion, the waters surrounding Asuncion, Maug, and Uracus, we need to keep in mind that there is next to no fishing taking place in these waters. Have you ever taken a boat to Guam? Maug is more than twice as far away as Guam.

Fishing surveys done on Saipan have found that none of the local fish markets have sold fish caught north of Pagan in the last several years. And Pagan is only about midway to Maug. So we are talking about an area where very few people have ever visited, and where even fewer people have fished. The area is simply not an area where people on Saipan are getting their protein. It is too far away and the price of gas is too high. There are many more closer fishing spots, including Farallon de Medinila, Anatahan, Zealandia Bank, and the several of the other Northern Islands south of the monument.

The real important part to remember here is that, although there is no local fishing in the monument today or in previous years, the monument proclamation allows for sustenance, recreational, and traditional indigenous fishing as long as it is “managed as a sustainable activity consistent with other applicable law and after due consideration with respect to traditional indigenous fishing.”

All of the boats on Saipan that are seaworthy enough to make it the hundreds of miles to the monument are actually allowed to fish there as long as they follow the fishing rules that are there to ensure sustainability. No fishermen have been barred from fishing there since the day the monument was declared.

Since no fisherman has been harmed, why would we want to throw away the potential benefits from the monument? While there is well-deserved skepticism and frustration with the lack of progress from our federal partners, it makes no sense to throw the baby out with the bathwater because things are moving slowly.

If our governor has such a close working relationship with the Trump administration, he should be using this influence to open the federal coffers to fund a management plan, enforcement strategies, and building a visitors center, not open up the monument to commercial fishermen to compete with local fishermen.
 
Ignacio V. Cabrera
I Agag, Saipan