Guam's ocean advocate alarmed by Trump's move to reopen marine monument
- Admin
- Aug 7
- 3 min read
By Ron Rocky Coloma
Amanda Dedicatoria remembers the moment vividly. Aboard the Exploration Vessel Nautilus, she watched a camera descend into the depths of the Pacific, revealing a coral reef teeming with life. Then she saw it—wrapped in the reef was a ghost net, likely abandoned by a deep-sea trawler.
“I still don’t have the words to describe what it felt like,” said Dedicatoria, who recently completed a three-week expedition across the Mariana Islands. “It was a testament to how our actions can affect the beauty and health of these ecosystems.”
In April, President Donald Trump reopened the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument to commercial fishing in response to American Samoa's request. His directive restored limited fishing between 50 miles and 200 miles for a migratory species like tuna.
Trump's push for commercial fishing was followed by another executive order, pressing for seabed exploration to “unleash America’s offshore critical minerals and resources.”
“He wants to reduce the barriers to economic efficiency and make the whole ‘pie’ grow globally so that both big and small jurisdictions, including remote ones like ours, can benefit," American Samoa Del. Uifa’atali Amata Radewagen said in a statement this week.
But ocean advocates like Dedicatoria are raising concerns.
“A lot of the risks associated with deep-sea industrial activity aren’t fully understood,” she said. “Many animals that live in these deep-sea ecosystems are highly specialized, so these places could face biodiversity loss and have lasting repercussions we are not even aware of yet.”
Dedicatoria, who focuses on ocean exploration and public engagement, said the deep ocean plays an active role in sustaining both biodiversity and human life.
“The ocean is a place of great ecological and cultural significance,” she said. “As someone who comes from an island, I believe that we all have a responsibility to be good stewards of the waters around us.”
“While many of these ecosystems are different, they are highly connected through the geological, biological and chemical processes that made them all possible,” she said.
Dedicatoria was recently featured in Puengen Tåsi Siha: Ocean Nights at the Museum, a Guam Museum event that highlights local voices in marine science, conservation and art.
“Marine protected areas safeguard biodiversity, contribute to ecosystem resilience and improve fish stocks,” she said. “Supporting the health of the ocean results in that care being extended to the communities that steward it.”
Among those communities are the CHamoru and Refaluwasch peoples, who have lived with and from the ocean for generations.
“From fishing, seafaring, language, to creating nets and tools to sustain themselves, the CHamoru and Refaluwasch peoples have cultivated the knowledge and practices to live in symbiosis with the ocean,” Dedicatoria said. “Indigenous knowledge keepers should be able to lead the conversations that affect their communities, their surrounding ecosystems and generations to come.”
The push to industrialize deep-ocean areas comes as demand grows for rare earth minerals, many of which are found in polymetallic nodules on the sea floor. Mining those areas could permanently alter ecosystems that have not yet been fully studied.
“Many seamounts provide hard substrate for the formation of coral reefs, which contribute to marine biodiversity and bolster the health of nearby fisheries,” Dedicatoria said. “By capturing huge quantities of heat and carbon dioxide, the deep ocean also plays a critical role as a buffer to climate change.”
For Dedicatoria, ocean exploration is not just about discovery. It’s about responsibility.
“I’ve learned that there is so much we don’t know,” she said. “Ocean exploration is important because it enables us to learn more about what’s out there and around us and how we can become better at being responsible for the gift of sharing our lives with something as wonderful as the ocean.”
“I think it’s amazing that we get to live in this part of the world that has these rich traditions in seafaring, fishing and storytelling and that we get to give back to the Marianas and its community,” Dedicatoria said. “Holding these events is the least we can do.”
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