Our Journey Together

Since 2014, our Coalition has activated thousands of individuals, organizations, elected leaders, and more across the Pacific and beyond to protect and honor this special place.

In 2009, President George W. Bush established the monument, protecting 50 nautical miles around each of the five management units Wake, Jarvis, Johnston Atoll, Howland and Baker Islands, and Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef.  The monument safeguards some of the most pristine ocean habitats in the Pacific, and as a result, provides a rare scientific baseline to help understand the magnitude of loss of ocean life elsewhere and to set appropriate benchmarks for management and conservation.

In 2014, President Obama proposed an expansion of the area’s marine protections as a key strategy for increasing the ocean’s resilience to climate change. Our coalition was formed and led the effort that the resulted in expanded protections for three of these five management units (Wake, Johnston, and Jarvis) to 200 nautical miles (the limit of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone). The expansion safeguarded rich coral ecosystems and feeding and breeding grounds of an estimated 14 million seabirds representing 19 species, many of which are threatened with extinction. The monument also gave permanent protection to populations of endangered sea turtles, marine mammals, and sharks. The expanded area was smaller that the 782,000 square miles initially considered by President Obama, which was a direct result of input from the commercial fishing industry.

Monument protections came under threat during both Trump Administrations. In August 2017, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke sent a draft report to President Trump that included his findings and recommendations on national monuments under review as a result of the April 26, 2017, executive order. The public comment period showed extensive public support for keeping protections for the Pacific Islands Heritage in place. In April 2025, President Trump issued an executive order targeting PIH and attempted to scale back monument protections from 50 to 200 nautical miles, opening up 408,000 square miles of the monument to harmful industrial fishing and extraction. In May 2025, Earthjustice, representing plaintiffs Kāpaʻa, the Conservation Council for Hawai‘i, and the Center for Biological Diversity, filed a lawsuit opposing the proclamation that permitted U.S. commercial fishing within the expansion area. Our coalition remains committed to defending the Pacific Islands Heritage from harm and extraction, including industrial fishing, deep-sea mining, and new threats such as military activity at Kalama (Johnston Atoll) and SpaceX operations in the Pacific.

President Biden called for the designation of a national marine sanctuary to protect the remaining two management units (Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef, Howland and Baker Islands) to 200 nautical miles. Along with expanded protections, our coalition asked the Biden Administration to honor the area’s unique history and cultural significance with an inclusive renaming process for the monument and to recognize the sacrifice and bravery of the Hui Panalāʻau. The once-secret group now called the Hui Panalāʻau included 135 mostly Native Hawaiian young men whom the federal government sent on a quiet operation from 1935-1942 to “colonize” the uninhabited islands of Howland, Baker, and Jarvis to establish them under U.S. jurisdiction. In 2025, after an eighteen-month process, the area was renamed the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument. Both announcements acknowledge the historical and cultural significance that Indigenous Pacific Islanders share with this special place. Our Coalition remains committed to amplifying additional stories of Pacific peoples in this region.

Our Vision for Co-Management

We believe that the area will have the greatest protection when Pacific Island communities are properly represented at the highest levels of the management and decision-making process. As an example, Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM), which is jointly administered by four co-trustees that include the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), has been instrumental in establishing avenues for Indigenous communities to participate in ongoing management actions. In that spirit, we envision full protection and a resource management structure for the Pacific Islands Heritage so that traditional ecological knowledge and modern science can be at the forefront of ongoing and future protections for the Pacific.