Strands of kelp glow in the dim morning light off California’s Channel Islands as fish and sea lions weave through the golden fronds. It’s a scene of remarkable abundance — the result of more than two decades of protection in one of the state’s oldest marine reserves.
But farther out in the Pacific, life in the vast Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument faces a very different future. The Trump administration has moved to reopen 500,000 square miles (about 1.3 million square kilometers) of previously protected waters there to commercial fishing, in a dramatic rollback of federal ocean protections.
