Reverse NOAA's Rollback of Marine Protections

Endangered sea turtles, sea lions, and whales are about to lose ground they've spent decades regaining.

As Inside Climate News reports, NOAA has directed the nation's regional fisheries councils to scrap marine protected areas, remove species from conservation lists, and expand commercial fishing. 

This attack on the environment includes eliminating the cap on endangered leatherback turtle deaths in Hawaiʻi's longline fishery, shrinking sanctuaries for the still-endangered Western population of Steller sea lions, and making ropeless fishing gear optional even though entanglements kill an estimated 300,000 whales, dolphins, and porpoises a year.

Fisheries experts say the changes ignore basic science. One former NOAA regional administrator called the plan "a series of incoherent measures" that wouldn't improve sustainability and, in some cases, would make things worse and the letters directing these changes don't mention climate change at all, even as a major El Niño threatens to compound the damage.

Add your name to demand that NOAA reverse course, keep science — not short-term industry pressure — at the center of fisheries management, and preserve the protections that endangered marine species need to survive.

Conservationists warn this isn't fisheries management, it's deregulation dressed up as competitiveness. Protecting spawning grounds and endangered species isn't red tape, it's what keeps fish populations, and the industry that depends on them, alive long-term.

The ocean doesn't belong to any single industry. Protecting it for the long term shouldn't be optional.