The Center for American Progress published a new video today calling attention to one of the America the Beautiful For All Coalition’s policy recommendations: Ensure marine protected area management and implementation. Protected areas that lack staffing, funding, and management plans have been shown to do a poor job of protecting nature. The Biden Administration must adequately fund and implement national marine sanctuaries and marine monuments so that they can accomplish the goals laid out in their respective decrees, legislation, and management plans. Where management plans are incomplete, they must be completed. We call attention the need for better management of protected areas through the stories of the US Pacific Territories and Hawaii – home to 96% of the marine protected area coverage in the United States.  The video lays out the history of the how and the why the U.S. colonized their first islands in the Western-Central Pacific and tells how the Pacific territories aren&

The Pacific Remote Islands are Micronesian Islands   Scoping Comments for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Proposed Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Sanctuary Prepared by Angelo Villagomez Submitted May 23, 2023 My name is Angelo Villagomez and I am currently a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and an Indigenous Chamorro ocean advocate from the Northern Mariana Islands.  For the last 15 years I have advocated for the designation and active management of marine protected areas in the United States and across the globe, including the Mariana Trench, Pacific Remote Islands, and Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monuments.  I founded the Friends of the Mariana Trench and wrote the nomination for the proposed Mariana Trench National Marine Sanctuary; I am also the conservation chair for the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument community group and co-lead the Ocean Workgroup for the America the Beautiful for All Coalition.  I offer the followi