These are some of the last pristine ocean ecosystems. Now, they’re losing protections

Seabirds use them as nesting sites to raise their young, returning to the open ocean to hunt for fish. Sooty terns spend years at sea, flying thousands of miles before coming back to land tobreed.

Pacific atolls also attract deep-water species that swim hundreds of miles, like tuna. In the warm, nutrient-poor waters of the central Pacific where food is sparse, atolls are like bustlingcafés.

Seabirds rely on those tuna and other large predators to corral schools of small fish. As tuna feed, they drive the schools near the ocean’s surface, where birds can reachthem.

This interconnected ecosystem, stretching from treetops to the deep sea, is one of the reasons the waters around Pacific atolls were granted federalprotections.

Hawaii’s fishing fleet supports the move to open monument waters. From Honolulu Harbor, longline boats travel hundreds of miles in search of fish, which they catch with thousands of baited hooks in deepwater.

Hawaii’s fishing industry says it’s facing increasing competition on the high seas from foreign vessels also searching for tuna, as well as rising diesel fuel costs. Opening Pacific marine monument waters could give the fleet more opportunities, since foreign ships wouldn’t be permitted to fishthere.

“Our view is that we can have both: We can have very high levels of protection and allow sustainable fishing in the same place,” says Eric Kingma, executive director of the Hawaii Longline Association. “It’s really about the opportunity to fish away from foreigncompetition.”

Closing some parts of the ocean can also help fishing fleets in some cases. Ecologists have found that protected areas can allow more fish to breed, increasing the population. They then swim outside protected zones, where they can be caught — what’s known asspillover.

Researchers are trying to figure out whether that spillover effect happens for highly migratory species like tuna, which swim in and out of protectedzones.

After the protections for Papahānaumokuākea were expanded, a study in 2022 found that the catch rate of yellowfin tuna went up 54%. Bigeye tuna catch rates went up12%.

A 2024 study by another group of researchers found no evidence that catching yellowfin tuna was easier. It did find that bigeye tuna was 13% easier tocatch.

Federal officials at NOAA did not respond to questions about opening the marine monuments or the potential impacts offishing.

Conservation groups say that with climate change, the Pacific marine monuments deserve the highest level of protection. The healthier an ecosystem is, the better chance it has to withstand the impacts of warmingwaters.

Conservation and Hawaiian cultural groups say they plan to file a lawsuit to challenge the opening of the three Pacific marine monuments, includingPapahānaumokuākea.

For the fourth monument, Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, federal officials at NOAA are expected to release a decision on commercial fishing thisyear.