US move to loosen restrictions on fishing could harm vital ecosystems, experts warn

Filed 1h ago · Via Mongabay · The Buffoon Desk

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Manic Polka

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: PMO Barbados from Bridgetown, Barbados · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

NOAA Fisheries published a list of 34 deregulatory priorities on Sept. 2, advancing a Trump executive order to loosen fishing restrictions near protected species and marine national monuments.

Conservationists warn the changes, including reconsidering protections for right whales, sea turtles, and manta rays, could cause overfishing that takes years to reverse. The priorities also propose weakening the Magnuson-Stevens Act's national standards, guidelines that have anchored U.S. fisheries management since 1976.

The plan follows a proposed FY2027 budget that cuts NOAA Fisheries' data collection, surveys, and endangered species grants. Courts have already struck down one related proclamation reopening a Pacific monument to commercial fishing, with other Trump proclamations facing ongoing legal challenges.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

An agency tasked with keeping fish stocks healthy is now bragging about regulating less, as if the whole point of the job was to do less of it. You don't call a fence company successful because they stopped building fences. When the lawsuits start piling up faster than the priority lists, that usually tells you something about how well thought out the plan was.

Source: Read the original at Mongabay → Scored: Manic Polka · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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