National Marine Sanctuaries

Our National Marine Sanctuaries are some of the most valuable areas in our oceans. Sanctuary habitats include coral and rocky reefs, ocean gardens and kelp forests, whale migrations corridors, deep sea canyons and safe habitat for endangered species.

But if Trump and his Big Oil cronies get their way, these waters could be opened for drilling. Despite overwhelming opposition in the form of public comments, Department of Interior called for gutting three marine National Monuments: Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll.

The U.S. West Coast claims 15,333 square miles of marine protected areas around the Channel Islands, Cordell Bank, Greater Farallones and Monterey Bay in California and Washington’s Olympic Coast sanctuary. The Pacific Islands are home to the largest marine protected area in the United States, stretching the length of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and a humpback whale habitat is protected in the main Hawaiian Islands. Fagatele Bay on the island of Tutuila in American Samoa also has sanctuary protection.

The East Coast, Great Lakes and Gulf of Mexico are host to over 5,000 square miles of sanctuary waters including areas in the Florida Keys, Gray’s Reef off Georgia, Flower Garden Banks in the Gulf, Stellwagen off the New England coast, Monitor off of North Carolina coast and Thunder Bay in Lake Huron.

Our sanctuaries are unique places and should be some of the first places protected from environmental harms. Unfortunately, with the explosion of vessel traffic, including cruise ship traffic in U.S. oceans, our marine sanctuaries remain under serious threat of degradation from vessel discharges – in addition to attacks by the Trump Administration. We need your help now more than ever to safeguard our oceans and the ecosystems they support.