President Donald Trump revoked a 2021 prohibition on commercial fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, citing existing federal law as sufficient to protect the area’s ecosystems.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
President Donald Trump on Friday revoked Biden-era restrictions on commercial fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, restoring rules that allow regulated fishing activity in the protected Atlantic waters and asserting that existing federal statutes already provide adequate environmental safeguards.
The action reverses a 2021 decision by Joe Biden that reinstated a ban on commercial fishing within the roughly 4,913-square-mile monument located off the New England coast, where the continental shelf drops into the Atlantic Ocean. The monument was originally established in 2016 by Barack Obama through Proclamation 9496.
In his new proclamation, Trump said allowing well-regulated commercial fishing serves the public interest and is consistent with long-standing federal fisheries law. The proclamation argues that the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act already ensures sustainable fishing practices and protects marine species, making a blanket prohibition unnecessary.
“Following further consideration of the nature of the objects identified in Proclamation 9496 and the protection of those objects already provided by Federal law, I find that appropriately managed commercial fishing would not put the objects of historic and scientific interest that the monument protects at risk,” the proclamation states.
Trump’s decision builds on his earlier 2020 modification of the monument, which removed fishing restrictions imposed under the Antiquities Act by Obama’s original designation. Obama had created the monument to preserve deep-sea canyons, seamounts, and associated marine life, including rare corals and highly migratory fish species.
In explaining the latest change, Trump noted that many fish found within the monument are not unique to the area and are already managed by regional fishery councils using scientific data. The proclamation also points to other federal laws—the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the Clean Water Act—as providing additional protections for wildlife, habitats, and water quality.
The action formally revokes Biden’s 2021 Proclamation 10287 and reinstates the terms of Trump’s 2020 Proclamation 10049. While the monument’s geographic boundaries remain unchanged, its management will now follow the 2020 framework, permitting commercial fishing activities under existing regulatory regimes.
Trump’s proclamation further emphasizes that the Antiquities Act requires national monuments to encompass the “smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”
Environmental groups have long supported the monument’s restrictions, arguing that they protect vulnerable marine ecosystems from industrial activity. In 2019, a federal appeals court upheld Obama’s original designation against legal challenges from fishing interests, affirming the ban on commercial fishing and other resource extraction to protect whales, turtles, fish, and deep-sea corals within the monument.