On August 14, 2025, the final protocols by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) regarding 18 marine habitats in the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Pacific Remote Islands will take effect. The protocols will designate the 18 habitats as critical under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The guidelines would establish hope to protect reef-building corals by prohibiting activities such as the “take, import, export, and interstate or foreign commerce.” In other words, the ESA protocols would aim to remove economic activities that are damaging to the environment.
However, the ESA protocols would interfere with existing military projects by the federal government. The NOAA’s new “development of a methodology for using records of listed coral species to determine the occupied areas for critical habitat” led to three changes to the original proposed guidelines. The most notable is the NOAA denying the US Navy’s request to exclude one marine habitat in Guam—Ritidian Point Surface Danger Zone—from being designated a critical habitat.
Coral reefs across the Pacific Ocean have experienced population decline because of multiple threats, including “ocean warming, diseases, ocean acidification, fishing, and land-based pollution,” per the NOAA Fisheries. The US Marine Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) predicts that rising sea surface temperatures and marine heat waves will increase the frequency and severity of coral bleaching events. In fact, the EPA projects that “bleaching events will continue to be more common and could occur annually in some locations in the Pacific by 2035”.
Yet, many climate stressors and human-made pollution won’t only affect the environment. The EPA believes that tropical cyclones will increase the risk of algae-acquired fish toxicity (fish poisoning when people eat reef fish that have eaten toxic species of algae). The hot and dry weather conditions would increase the risk of wildfires, which are directly tied to water quality. Deforestation contributes to higher rates of erosion and runoff water, which contain harmful pollutants. As a result, the EPA research concludes that the combination of climate change stressors and human-made environmental crises can “contribute to a 20 percent decline in coral reef fish production by 2050.”
The growing environmental concerns were echoed in the Northern Mariana’s Legislature meeting on July 14, 2025. The Department of Fish and Wildlife faces incredibly low funding, leading to low salaries for conservation officers and growing staff resignations. The only source of revenue is $3,000 from fishing permits, causing the Department to lose money each year. Therefore, the Northern Mariana Islands have been unable to regulate fishing boats without licenses, leading to overfishing and further environmental harm.
As the NOAA’s final rules are implemented, many US territories continue to face environmental degradation from climate change. The decline in coral reefs isn’t only a matter of conservation, but rather an effect on the lives of residents in the US territories. In the future, the US federal government has to balance both national security and economic interests with conservation of the environment in its Pacific territories.
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