The Pacific Ocean Fed Her Community for Generations. Now It’s Under Attack by the Trump Administration

• President Trump signed a proclamation in June attempting to reopen commercial fishing in zones of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and other protected Pacific waters.
• The proposal threatens nearly two dozen endangered and threatened species, critical whale habitat, and the ocean ecosystem that has physically and spiritually sustained Native Hawaiian communities for centuries.
• Allowing commercial fishing in protected ocean waters violates federal law. Earthjustice is preparing legal action.

Centuries before contact with Europeans up until today, the Pacific Ocean has physically and spiritually sustained Pelika Andrade’s Native Hawaiian community.

“Most of our protein came from the ocean,” says Andrade, who was raised on the shores and rivers of the island of Kaua‘i. Her father would use a “throw net” — a net with small weights to carry the net to the sea floor — to catch fish native to Hawaiʻi: āholehole and nenue. After a few minutes, he would pull it up to see what he caught. The ocean also provided Limu Kohu, a popular seaweed in Hawaiʻi, that they’d gather and eat.

The water not only fed her family and community, it was also a source of healing. “Salt water is a cleanser on a spiritual level,” Andrade says. “We immerse [ourselves] in water to cleanse and to release. If we’re ever anxious or overstimulated or stressed, a lot of us will go to the ocean.”

“From freshwater, to brackish, to salt water, we are in relationship with our waters,” she explains.

But now, the ocean and aquatic life that her community has depended on for food, health, and cultural grounding are under threat. In June, President Trump signed a proclamation to allow commercial fishing in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, a protected marine monument with boundaries that begin near the coast of Kaua‘i and the neighboring island of Ni‘ihau.

The monument is one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world, spanning 582,578 square miles of the Pacific Ocean. It encompasses the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands – long recognized by Native Hawaiians as a place of their akua (gods) and kūpuna (ancestors) — and is home to more than 7,000 marine species.

Humpback whale in the waters near the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. (Drewsulock Creations/Getty)

Papahānaumokuākea was established by President Bush in 2006 and expanded in 2016 by President Obama. It now spans approximately 582,570 square miles. Papahānaumokuākea’s significance was affirmed in 2010 when it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 2025, it gained further protection as the Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Sanctuary.

The monument is a pu‘uhonua, or place of refuge, for Hawai‘i’s ocean species, protecting nearly two dozen endangered and threatened species — including the Hawaiian Monk Seal and the Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle — while providing the wintering habitat for two-thirds of the humpback whales in the Hawaiian Archipelago. It also protects 3.5 million acres of coral reef, 70% of all coral reefs found in the United States.

A Hawaiian monk seals and a green sea turtles on one of the beaches of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument.
(Mark Sullivan/NOAA)

Trump’s proclamation applies not only to Papahānaumokuākea, but also the Islands Unit of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument and the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument. The decision to lift the ban on commercial fishing in monuments specifically established to exclude the practice obliterates the purposes of the monuments.

Commercial fishing damages marine ecosystems through overfishing, habitat destruction, and bycatch. When the populations of certain fish species plummet, it disrupts marine food webs with long-term damage rippling across the ecosystem. Commercial fishing techniques also result in bycatch, or the unintentional capture of species not targeted by commercial fishing, and results in abandoned fishing gear that can destroy coral reefs.

Not only is lifting the ban on commercial fishing destructive to Papahānaumokuākea and the wildlife it protects — it also exceeds the president’s authority under the Antiquities Act, which only allows the president to designate national monuments, not to shrink or destroy them. Earthjustice is prepared to bring legal action to ensure that the monument’s protections stay in place.

If the Trump administration’s attack were to succeed, the ecosystems of thousands of species would be affected –– as well as people who depend on them.

Yellowfin goatfish swim on a reef in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. (Claire Fackler, CINMS, NOAA.)

For Andrade, taking care of the ocean is a Native Hawaiian privilege and responsibility: you protect what you are in relationships with and takes care of you. For nearly two decades she has done just that as a member, and current co-chair, of the Papahānaumokuākea Native Hawaiian Cultural Working Group (CWG).

The CWG works to ensure Native Hawaiian voices and cultural perspectives are integrated into the management of the monument. It aims to maintain and protect the monument’s natural, cultural, and historic resources. Andrade describes her role as being “immersed in an intimate relationship” with the ocean while serving it.

Pelika Andrade sits on a swing on the beach in Hawaii (Photo Courtest of Pelika Andrade)

The attack on Papahānaumokuākea continues a pattern of attacks from the Trump administration on public lands and waters – including other Pacific Ocean monuments — to benefit extractive corporations.

Last year, Earthjustice successfully sued the Trump administration after it tried to illegally strip protections and open commercial fishing in the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument. The administration struck again this summer, announcing it would lease over 31 million acres of federal waters off American Samoa for deep-sea mining — a new, untested technology that seeks to extract and sell minerals like nickel and cobalt from the deepest parts of the ocean.

Scientists believe this kind of mining will cause biodiversity loss and irreversible habitat destruction. It would decimate deep sea species, contaminating fish, whales, sharks, and other species with toxic metals. Earthjustice is also prepared to challenge deep-sea mining in court to support our clients in American Samoa.

“There are just layers and layers of disrespect,” says Andrade, of Trump’s proclamation. “The fact that sanctuaries and monuments are necessary tells us that we’ve been behaving badly.”

A tropical sunset over a placid sea. Hawaii, Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. (Claire Fackler/CINMS/NOAA)

She says Native Hawaiians are responding to powerful political and corporate interests through the lens of traditional values.

For example, in traditional times, Native Hawaiians would avoid fishing certain species in large numbers or place restrictions on fishing in certain areas. This allowed marine resources to replenish after a particularly abundant harvest, or after witnessing an abnormal absence or decrease in a species’ numbers. This practice ensured enough resources to sustain present and future generations.

“They’d potentially rest [on fishing] until they had a better assessment of the production of that species, and the state of that production,” Andrade says, adding: “Every indigenous culture around the world had a system of maintaining balance. It would be nice to remind the world of those values.”