WASHINGTON: The Obama administration announced plans on Monday to step up the fight against illegal fishing, pollution and other crimes at sea, including the creation of two new national marine sanctuaries, one in Maryland and the other in Lake Michigan, the first in 15 years.
Administration officials also said they intended to expand the use of satellites that track illegal activity by detecting night lights used by fishermen to attract fish, and committed to better track all seafood that enters American ports.
“Our economies, our livelihoods and our food all depend on our oceans,” President Obama said in a videotaped message presented at the second annual Our Ocean conference held in Valparaíso, Chile. “And yet we know that our actions are changing them.”
Chilean officials said they intended to cordon off more than 200,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean near Easter Island from commercial fishing and oil and gas exploration.
Emphasizing the urgency of the crisis, Secretary of State John Kerry told the conference that the sea was acidifying 10 times faster than at any other point in history, and that one-third of the world’s fish stocks were overexploited.
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