This morning President Barack Obama announced he’s protecting nearly 5,000 square miles of marine ecosystems in the Atlantic Ocean. He calls his decision a necessary step to help our oceans bounce back from the negative effects of climate change.

“We cannot truly protect our planet without protecting our ocean,” said the president at the 2016 Our Ocean Conference. 

“Our oceans feed us, protect us, regulate our climate, our weather, anchors industries from transportation to tourism to trade of all kind,” said Obama. “The health of our planet’s oceans determine in large part the health of our bodies and our economies.

“And while it is our ocean contours that shape our coastlines, it is what we decide and do here that will shape our ocean’s future. And that’s why my administration has protected more waters than any in history.”

Last month, President Obama expanded a marine national monument off the coast of Hawaii, creating the largest marine protected area on earth — now twice the size of Texas. 

Obama said conservation efforts and obligations to combat climate change go hand in hand, because marine areas have many stressors: overfishing, ship traffic and pollution that ranges from visible plastic to invisible carbon. 

“The more of those threats we eliminate through conservation, the more resilient those ecosystems will be to the consequences of climate change,” said Obama.

It’s why Obama is building on those efforts by adding a marine national monument designation in the Atlantic Ocean. The area, roughly the size of Connecticut, is home to pristine undersea canyons and sea mounts with nearly 1,000 marine species, including ancient deep sea corals. Many environmental groups and scientists are hailing this decision. 

The designation doesn’t include Cashes Ledge in the Gulf of Maine, as Jon Witman had hoped, but he still thinks this is a “wonderful achievement.” The Brown University biology professor has been advocating for the protection of Cashes Ledge for several years.

Witman is one of the scientists who co-signed the proposal and co-authored studies supporting the benefits of such marine protections. 

“We know from some of our studies on Cashes Ledge that these types of bottom-dwelling marine life are not very resilient,” said Witman.

“They take from 10 to 250 years to recover once they are disturbed,” he said. “So the fact that they need at least a decade to hundreds of years to recover means that they need permanent protection beyond the time of a human lifetime to ensure that they will be on the sea floor and fully functioning as an ecosystem.”

Rhode Island’s congressional delegation recognizes this decision will create an important sanctuary for marine life, but also will have a real impact on segments of the state’s commercial fishing industry.

Most fishermen have two months to stop fishing in these areas, except offshore lobster and red crab fishermen, who can stay for seven years.

“[That decision] eased the pain, that’s for sure,” said Jon Williams, a red crab fisherman who said the broader fishing industry is disappointed. “It gives us seven years to go through a couple of other administrations to see what happens.”

Williams, owner of the Atlantic Red Crab Company in New Bedford, doesn’t know what his next steps will be. He said fishermen are fearful this is the first of future designations.

“It’s a very complicated issue that was decided through a very simple process,” said Williams. “And it’s very difficult to make complicated decisions when there’s been no analysis on what the after effects and unintended consequences of the decision will be.”

The New England Fishery Management Council has been working on its own coral protection measures throughout areas that include the new designation. Next week, it will redirect efforts to analyze the impact and implication of President Obama’s decision.