As most of Hawaii and much of the conservation world know by now, President Barack Obama expanded the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument on Friday, making it the largest ocean sanctuary in the world.

Civil Beat is among those who called for the president to take this action and we offer our aloha as the president once again comes home to Honolulu on Wednesday to discuss the details and impact of his historic decision.

The president’s visit coincides with the massive International Union for Conservation of Nature‘s World Conservation Congress taking place in Honolulu this week. As part of the trip, he’ll travel Thursday to Midway Atoll, which is within the monument boundaries, “to mark the significance of this monument designation and highlight firsthand how the threat of climate change makes protecting our public lands and waters more important than ever,” according to the White House.

The president’s declaration is not without controversy. Commercial longline fishers and restaurateurs have raised concerns over the challenges they’ll face as the monument’s overall area grows from 140,000 square miles to nearly 600,000 — almost the size of Alaska.

Previously able to fish 50 miles off the shores of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, longliners will be pushed beyond the monument’s new boundaries, 200 miles off those coasts. Recognizing the impact his decision will have on those fishers, Obama praised the “rich tradition of marine protection” in Hawaii, its “world-class, well managed fisheries” and a “longline fishing fleet that is a global leader in sustainable practices.”

The monument’s proposed boundaries and some of its other characteristics were altered earlier this year, following public dialogue convened by U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz to resolve significant differences over the original monument proposal, written in part by a group of seven Native Hawaiian leaders and sent to Obama in January.

Following the consensus of major constituents from that dialogue, Schatz modified that proposal to allow fishing in particularly productive waters around NOAA’s buoy station 51101, to accommodate both recreational fishing and cultural practices by Native Hawaiians throughout protected waters and to give the Office of Hawaiian Affairs a trustee role in managing the monument.

The Case For Conservation

The monument was created 10 years ago by President George W. Bush and named a World Heritage Site four years later by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

It’s home to more than 7,000 marine species, including many, like the Hawaiian monk seal, covered under the Endangered Species Act. Protected from commercial fishing, those animals will have the chance to reproduce and strengthen their ranks.

While there are other benefits to protecting these waters — among them, creating a natural lab in which to study the effects of climate change and protecting historic relics from World War II — they pale in comparison to the importance of conserving marine animals and ecosystems under severe pressure from human impacts. Impacts recognized within the Papahanaumokuakea designation are not limited to commercial fishing, by the way. Any future mineral extraction efforts would also be banned in the monument.

The expanded monument is home to more than 7,000 marine species, including many, like the Hawaiian monk seal, covered under the Endangered Species Act.

With the president shining an international spotlight on marine conservation and thousands of scientists and colleagues in town, here’s hoping there will be research interest in the many other environmental and ecological challenges facing Hawaii.

Our islands have long been considered the endangered species and extinction capital of the world. The U.S Fish and Wildlife Service lists 1,225 animal species and plants as endangered; of those, 481 are from Hawaii, and dozens more are under consideration for inclusion.

As Tony Perry pointed out earlier this year in the Washington Post, “The islands’ small land mass, their long history of extreme isolation and the recent rapid pace of development have left its many indigenous species vulnerable to predators and diseases for which they never developed defenses.”

Solutions to those vulnerabilities are almost always complex, and sometimes include responses as dramatic as the monument expansion now being implemented by the Obama administration. It was apparent they weighed on Gov. David Ige as he completed his recent letter of support to the president.

“In these times of increasing global threats to our natural and cultural resources, globally significant action will preserve our heritage,” wrote Ige, “for our keiki and our collective future.”