You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Obama Unveils New Oceans Protections Covering Pollution, Over-Fishing

HeadlineJun 19, 2014

President Obama has unveiled new measures aimed at protecting marine life from pollution and over-fishing. The United States will create the world’s largest ocean preserves by expanding federally protected waters in the Pacific Ocean. In a video message to the State Department’s “Our Oceans” summit, Obama also unveiled new curbs on illegal fishing.

President Obama: “Today, I’m building on that progress by directing the federal government to create a national strategy to combat black market fishing that threatens our oceans, undermines our economy, and often supports dangerous criminals. And like Presidents Clinton and Bush before me, I’m going to use my authority as president to protect some of our most precious marine landscapes, just like we do for mountains and rivers and forests. These are just a few of the steps the United States is taking to keep our oceans strong and healthy.”

Under Obama’s plan, the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument would expand from 87,000 square miles to more than 782,000 square miles.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top