Our Work

Since 2014, our Coalition has activated thousands of people, organizations, elected leaders, and more across the Pacific and beyond to protect and honor this special place.

In 2009, President George W. Bush established the monument, protecting 50 nautical miles around each of the five management units Wake, Howland, and Baker Islands,  Johnston Atoll, Palmyra Atoll, and Kingman Reef.   Our Coalition worked with the Obama administration to successfully expand protections for three of these five management units (Wake, Johnston, and Jarvis) to 200 nautical miles ( the limit of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone) and to recognize the bravery and sacrifice of the Hui Panalāʻau through the monument’s presidential proclamation. President Biden called for the designation of a national marine sanctuary to protect the remaining two management units (Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef, Howland and Baker Islands) to 200 nautical miles. However, these areas remain unprotected today and open to future exploitation.

Along with expanded protections, we asked the Biden Administration to honor the area’s unique history and cultural significance with an inclusive renaming process for the monument and to recognize the Hui Panalāʻau. In 2025, after an eighteen-month process, the area was renamed the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument. At our request, he also recognized the sacrifices and bravery of the 135 mostly Native Hawaiian young men whom the federal government sent on a quiet operation from 1935-1942 to “colonize” the uninhabited islands of Howland, Baker, and Jarvis to establish them under U.S. jurisdiction. Both announcements acknowledge the historical and cultural significance that Indigenous Pacific Islanders share with this special place. Our Coalition remains committed to amplifying additional stories of Pacific peoples in this region.

Our Vision for Co-Management

We believe that the area will have the greatest protection when Pacific Island communities are properly represented at the highest levels of the management and decision-making process. As an example, Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM), which is jointly administered by four co-trustees that include the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), has been instrumental in establishing avenues for Indigenous communities to participate in ongoing management actions. In that spirit, we envision full protection and a resource management structure for the Pacific Islands Heritage so that traditional ecological knowledge and modern science can be at the forefront of ongoing and future protections for the Pacific.