President Obama Just Quadrupled the Size of a Hawaii Marine Monument

White terns, albatross and other birds are seen on Midway Atoll, in the Pacific Ocean. President Barack Obama will visit Midway on Sept. 1 to highlight the threats that climate change pose to the region.

President Barack Obama on Friday quadrupled the size of a national marine monument off the coast of Hawaii, making it the largest protected area of any kind marine or terrestrial in the world.

Papahnaumokukea Marine National Monument will now span 582,578 square miles near the Northern Hawaiian Islands, the Obama administration announced on Friday. This is four times the size of the state of California.

The administration was able to expand the monument, which President George W. Bush first designated in 2006, using Obama's executive authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act.

Image: Pew Charitable trusts

The islands, described as "America's Galapagos," encompass the most intact tropical marine region under U.S. control. Many of the 7,000 marine species in the protected area including whales, sea turtles and ancient black coral are fighting for survival as intensive commercial fishing and human-caused climate change destroy their habitats worldwide.

Obama will head to the Papahnaumokukea (pronounced "Papa-ha-now-moh-koo-ah-kay-ah") Monument on Sept. 1 to draw attention to the threats that warming ocean temperatures and rising sea levels pose to marine ecosystems, according to the White House announcement.

Image: papahanaumokuakea.gov

The president will visit Midway Atoll, the site of a decisive naval battle during World War II and a remote coral reef facing significant ecological strains. The atoll's Eastern Island, a habitat for millions of seabirds, could all but disappear if sea levels rise by 6.5 feet, or 2 meters, by the end of the century, the U.S. Geological Survey found in a 2013 study.

The wider Hawaiian archipelago is also suffering from one of the worst and longest-lasting coral bleaching events in its history because of persistently high ocean temperatures.

The warmer water puts stress on the coral, which in turn expel the symbiotic algae that live in their tissue and give them nutrients and color. Without the algae, the coral turn white or pale and become more vulnerable to disease and death.

In Lisianski Atoll, which lies within the Papahnaumokukea monument, about one-and-a-half square miles of reef bleached and died in 2014 the worst bleaching event scientists had seen at the atoll, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said last October.

Image: NOAA

Obama's action on Friday won't necessarily slow the spread of coral bleaching events or shield the fragile ecosystems from warming and more acidic waters and rising sea levels. But it will protect marine species from harmful human activities by banning commercial fishing, mineral extraction and other resource-depleting industries.

The new area will also serve as a "natural laboratory" where scientists can monitor and explore the impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems and study how the region's biological resources adapt, the Obama administration said.

"The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are home to one of the most diverse and threatened ecosystems on the planet and a sacred place for the Native Hawaiian community," Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said Friday in a statement.

"President Obamas expansion of the Papahnaumokukea Marine National Monument will permanently protect pristine coral reefs, deep sea marine habitats and important cultural and historic resources for the benefit of current and future generations," Jewell added.

Obama is the seventh U.S. president to take steps to protect the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

President Teddy Roosevelt was the first, establishing the Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation in 1909. President George W. Bush later created the Papahnaumokukea monument in 2006, setting aside 139,818 square miles to protect and preserve the marine wildlife and the area's historic, cultural and scientific features.

The original monument's boundaries were more than 100 times the size of Yosemite National Park in California and larger than 46 of the 50 U.S. states, Bush said at the time.

The former president said he was inspired by a documentary about the Northern Hawaiian Island's biological resources show at the White House by Jean-Michel Cousteau, a marine explorer and son of the late Jacques Cousteau, according to news reports. Bush was also encouraged after talking with renowned marine biologist Sylvia Earle, an explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society since 1998.

Image: FilmMagic

Earle has fought for decades to create marine protected areas across the planet. Her foundation, the Sylvia Earle Alliance, aims to create a global network of such areas to safeguard 20 percent of the ocean by 2020.

The explorer told National Geographicon Friday that Obama's announcement buoys hope that the U.S. can lead the way in developing this network.

Native Hawaiian leaders and Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, first proposed the expansion of Papahnaumokukea monument in June, on the 10th anniversary of President Bush's executive order establishing the original boundaries. In a letter to Obama, Schatz called for quadrupling the monument's size while still allowing for local, sustainable fishing by island communities.

Recreational fishing and the removal of fish and other resources for Native Hawaiian cultural practices are allowed within the expanded monument by permit, as is scientific research.

"Papahnaumokukea is critically important to Native Hawaiian cultureit is our ancestral place, the birthplace of all life," Sol Kahoohalahala, a seventh-generation Hawaiian from the island of Lanai, said in a statement from Global Ocean Legacy, a project run by Pew Charitable Trusts.

"The expanded monument will serve as a conservation, climate, and cultural refuge for my granddaughter and future generations," Kahoohalahala added.

Read more: http://mashable.com/2016/08/26/obama-hawaii-largest-marine-protected-area/