I know I've been focusing a lot on the Mariana Trench National Monument, but it's time to also recognize that Marine National Monument protections have also been extended to The Pacific Remote Islands area, consisting of Wake, Baker, Howland, and Jarvis Islands, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, and Palmyra Atoll, which lie to the south and west of Hawaii. I've been to Palmyra Atoll and surveyed it's reefs and can say it's a spectacular, predator dominated coral reef system (exactly what a healthy Pacific reef should look like.) And I only landed once on Johnston Atoll (a former military base and Department of Defense chemical weapons dump) on my way to the Marshall Island's. While a former chemical weapons dump might sound like the wrong place to establish a monument, the coral reefs surrounding Johnston Atoll are teeming with fish, invertebrates, and many, many sharks!
Head here to read the Presidential Proclamation to establish the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.
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