For the past 51 / 2 years, the administration has focused on the nuts and bolts of marine issues, aiming to end overfishing in federally managed fisheries and establishing a new planning process for maritime activities. This week’s State Department ocean summit launches what officials there call a broader “global campaign” to address the problems of overfishing, pollution and ocean acidification.
“When the president is besieged by the problems as this administration has faced, it’s tough to keep your focus on ocean policy,” said former defense secretary Leon E. Panetta, who co-founded the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative nearly a decade ago while in Congress. “That’s the problem — you just can’t afford to put oceans on the back burner.”
No other country governs more of the sea than the United States, which controls more than 13 percent of the ocean area overseen by nations. And only China consumes more seafood each year.
The potential expansion area would quintuple the number of underwater mountains under protection. It would also end tuna fishing and provide shelter for nearly two dozen species of marine mammals, five types of threatened sea turtles, and a variety of sharks and other predatory fish species.