Obama to create first marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean

(Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

published 15 September 2016

To protect and preserve an area filled with endangered species and deepwater corals, President Obama will designate a section of the Atlantic Ocean a national monument.

He will make the formal announcement Thursday at the annual Our Ocean Conference in Washington. The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is about 130 miles off the southeast coast of Cape Cod, covering 4,913 square miles. It is home to endangered species like sei whales and Kemp's ridley turtles, and boasts three underwater canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon. It will be the first marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean, and under the designation, commercial fishing will be banned in the area by 2023, with red crab and lobster fisheries having seven years to cease operations, and other commercial fishing entities just 60 days.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.