Part 3 of 4

In my last OP ED II,  I suggested that the role of the successors to the Treaty Chiefs is crucial to protecting us against federal law that today are undermining our Treaty rights.  While some might say that the U.S. has not passed laws or federal regulations that have run counter to our treaty interests.  I would have to respectfully disagree.  What comes to my mind is the recent establishment of the American Samoa National Marine Sanctuaries resulted in the expansion of  the existing .25 square mile Fagatele Bay sanctuary to the present 13,586  square miles. 

This entire area of our marine waters and submerged lands is now under the administration of  NOAA under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act (NMSA) under the auspices of conservation, education, and scientific research not exclusively for our peoples’ benefit but for the entire U.S. nation! 

When our marine waters come under more federal control and for the benefit of the larger U.S. population while we still do not have a permanent political model that protects our treaty interests of continued access to the marine waters to fish and harvest, and these things are taken without any consideration as to whether our people should be compensated for what in the future may have benefited us,   I am extremely concerned and so should 80 to 90 percent of the American Samoa population who are covered under the treaties.

Under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act the sanctuary can be exploited for U.S. scientific research in the national interest.  The seabed and the benefits from its minerals and volcanic vents for possible geothermal energy exploration will be not only for our benefit, but also, for the  larger U.S. population.  Could someone have pointed out to NOAA that under our treaties that these things still belongs to the people of American Samoa until they have received their end of the treaty bargain of a permanent political status that protects our interests in marine waters and in submerged lands that were ceded?  Or, could someone have bargained with the U.S. Government  that our people be entitled to compensation if they exercise such extreme control over our marine environment and fishing community before the U.S. has fulfilled its end of the bargain of moving us into a permanent political status that protects our interest in these things.

Even if  the National Marine Sanctuaries Act regulates our marine environment for public purposes such as conservation, education and scientific research one has to consider the mode of decision-making the American Samoa National Marine Sanctuaries (ASNMS) is striving to perpetuate since 2005.  This is the idea that a group of experts or people who have interests in research, tourism, commercial fishing,  ocean recreation, business and industry, persons in the community at large will help identify interests and regulations needed in the sanctuaries.  It is a complex approach to decision-making that mimics what the Western Pacific Regional Fisheries Council, another branch of NOAA, already has in place concerning our waters.  Just check the websites of these two agencies and their purposes and compare.  Isn’t one federal agency regulating our marine waters for conservation, education, and scientific research enough?  If their are two doing the same thing, I only want the one whose purposes and agenda is least invasive of our treaty rights, while we remain without a permanent political status model that protects our interests in the marine waters. 

But which group of leaders is capable of scrutinizing the necessity and duplicity of these federal regulatory controls on our marine environment and fishermen? Who is measuring them against our Treaty rights?  Who reminds these federal agencies that  we have our traditional decision making processes through our village councils and local chiefs with respect to the fisheries and marine waters?  That we want these traditional decision-making bodies empowered to survive into the future?  That the introduction of such new and complex decision-making processes  risks making our traditional decision-making processes irrelevant?  Why are we behaving like “sheeple” and  accepting these federal regulations and foreign decision making processes when we are under treaty and have not yet developed a political status model that would protect our interests in these things?  We cannot rely just on the Governor and fono to help us.   Once we see federal laws that harm our people, in ways that our treaties protect against, we must rally together and ask the successors to the Treaty Chiefs to help our people