The Governor of American Samoa, Lolo Moliga, is asking President Barack Obama to abandon plans to create the world's largest ocean reserve in the Pacific.
President Obama wants to expand the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument from the current 50 nautical miles, to the full extent of its 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic zone.
Lolo Moliga wrote to the president, saying the proposal will have devastating consequences as it it will effectively curtail the territory's continued economic survival and end their subsistence lifestyles.
The governor says it will also have a devastating impact by way of the loss of fish available on which the local canneries depend to sustain production.
Lolo Moliga says the territory has already lost one of its tuna fish canning plants because Congress elected to arbitrarily apply the federal minimum wage without first determining it's damaging effects.
He adds the continued viability of the territory's tuna fish canneries is already in jeopardy by the aggressive and predatory investments by China in fisheries development in the Pacific.
