Mariana Trench
Marine National Monument
for the Commonwealth of the
Northern Mariana Islands
The largest of the protected areas former President Bush designated surrounds the Northern Mariana Islands and includes the Mariana Trench, the deepest canyon on earth. The Mariana Islands monument alone protects 95,000 square miles, encompassing areas believed to harbor some of the oldest known life on the DNA tree. By itself, this monument is the third largest marine reserve in the world. Among the diverse and remarkable underwater features of the Mariana region are the second known boiling pool of liquid sulfur (the first pool was discovered on Io, one of Jupiter’s moons); huge, active mud volcanoes -- one more than 31 miles across; and highly acidic hydrothermal vents that provide a unique natural laboratory for the study of ocean acidification and its effects on coral reefs and shallow-water sea life.
For the past two years, the Pew Environment Group's Global Ocean Legacy Program has worked with the Bush Administration as well as citizens and elected officials in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas to promote the concept of a large-scale marine reserve in the waters surrounding the Mariana Islands. More than 200 local businesses and 6,000 citizens signed petitions supporting world-class marine monument designation.
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Natural History
The 14 islands making up the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (Commonwealth) lie atop a north-south midocean ridge 1,400 miles south of Japan. Guam, politically distinct from the Commonwealth, is the southernmost of the Mariana Islands.
The northernmost islands of the Mariana chain are remote, uninhabited and largely unvisited. Isolation has allowed the ecosystem to evolve without significant human-related changes. However, active volcanoes within the proposed monument produce intermittent and often violent changes in the undersea environment, making it a unique laboratory for biological research. Uracus, the northernmost island, has been called the Lighthouse of the Western Pacific for its persistent eruptions.
Tremendous volcanic undersea vents or "smokers" are a spectacular natural feature of the archipelago. The deep sea areas within the proposed monument hold remarkable geologic features including pools of liquid sulfur, bubbles of liquid carbon dioxide that are released through fractured lava, and dense beds of chemosynthetic life covering submarine crater walls.
The relatively unspoiled nature of these waters, the tropical location, volcanism and highly variable bathymetry all offer a biologically diverse, even unique, set of habitats and sea life. More than two dozen species of seabirds inhabit the area along with several species of endangered and threatened populations of sea turtles, a variety of marine mammals and giant coconut crabs (the largest land-living arthropod in the world).
Culture, Economy and Government
The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands is a commonwealth in political union with the United States. Most U.S. federal laws apply, and its citizens hold U.S. passports. Until this year, the Commonwealth was the only U.S.-affiliated possession without a delegate in Congress.
The population of the Commonwealth is concentrated on three islands at the south end of the archipelago. Over ninety percent of the 66,000 residents live in the capital on Saipan. The indigenous Chamorro and Carolinian peoples make up about 28 percent of the population.
Commercial and subsistence fishing occurs primarily around the inhabited islands. The total value of the Commonwealth commercial fisheries, including reef fish, bottom fish, tuna and other pelagic species, has, in the past few years, been somewhat less than $1 million annually.
Mariana Trench Marine National Monument Fact Sheets:
