WILDERNESS SOCIETY • May 5, 2020
A proclamation issued by President Trump today threatens the fate of national monuments, and a bedrock conservation law, by using an unprecedented attempt to undermine the Antiquities Act. The President traveled to Maine to meet with a small group of fisherman and issued what is believed to be an illegal proclamation that would open the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Marine Monument to commercial fishing. These limits were put in place for these sensitive ocean areas in 2016 to protect deep-sea coral, a number of fish species, endangered whales, and rare seabirds.