Jun 18, 2026
On June 11, 2026, President Trump signed a proclamation directing agencies to begin the process to roll back protections for three marine national monuments in the Pacific: Papahānaumokuākea, the Islands Unit of the Mariana Trench, and Muliāva (Rose Atoll) Marine National Monuments. This action threatens to open nearly 500,000 square miles of previously protected ocean to destructive industrial fishing. It would be the largest rollback of protected areas in history. The America the Beautiful for All Coalition, comprising more than 300 organizations working to steward nature in a manner that upholds environmental justice and defends public health, strongly condemns this action.
These are not empty waters. "The Mariana Trench protects the deepest undersea ecosystem in the world. I am Chamorro, and these are my ancestral waters. These places belong to the people and communities who have stewarded them for generations, not to wealthy American fishermen now being invited in," said Angelo Villagomez, Ocean Workgroup Co-Lead, America the Beautiful for All Coalition, and Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress.
Muliāva shelters 97% of the entire seabird population of American Samoa. Papahānaumokuākea is sacred to Native Hawaiians, who understand it as the place from which all life springs and to which spirits return. It is home to more than 7,000 marine species, a quarter of which are found nowhere else on Earth. “This action could kill as many as 10,000 sharks per year,” added Villagomez.
The Trump administration is treating the Pacific as a resource to extract, not a home to protect. Suraida Nañez-James, Ocean Workgroup Co-Lead, America the Beautiful for All Coalition, and Executive Director, Gulf Reach Institute, said: "We know what happens when the ocean is treated as a commodity. Gulf communities have lived that story for decades. The same logic that poisons our coasts is now being aimed at some of the most iconic waters in the United States."
This is a public health crisis as much as a conservation one. For Pacific Islander and other coastal communities, fish are not a commodity but a primary source of nutrition. Research shows that when fisheries decline, malnutrition rises and the closest people, including children, bear the heaviest cost. These monuments are among the breeding grounds that keep Pacific fisheries healthy, and opening them to destructive industrial fishing puts that food security at risk. "Our children deserve an ocean that sustains life, not one hollowed out by polluters" said Nsedu Obot Witherspoon, MPH, Steering Committee Co-Chair, America the Beautiful for All Coalition, and Executive Director, Children's Environmental Health Network.
"This is a historic event, though not in the way any of us hoped in our nation's 250th year. We will not let this moment pass in silence. These monuments have had bipartisan support for over two decades. We will speak, we will organize, and we will see this challenged," said Shantha Ready Alonso, Executive Director of America the Beautiful for All Coalition. We call on Congress to defend our marine national monuments, to reject the commodification of our ocean, and to listen to the communities, scientists, and Indigenous people who have always known that these waters deserve thoughtful, reverent care.
