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Mariana Archipelago
The archipelago’s indigenous Chamorro and Refaluwasch communities have a history of fishing that spans over three millennia. Waves of colonization by Westerners beginning in the 1600s had a devastating impact on traditional fishing practices. Today, the expansion and development of fisheries are still constrained, and most of the fishermen in the archipelago participating in the bottomfish fishery, crustacean fishery and coral reef ecosystem fishery do so primarily for subsistence, barter and cultural sharing purposes, such as for fiestas and food exchanges with family and friends. For information on the pelagic fisheries, click here. In Guam, waters 0 to 3 miles from shore are managed by the Territory and waters 3-200 miles are federally managed. However, the US government considers all waters from 0 to 200 miles around CNMI as federal. The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council is working to incorporate locally developed regulations for CNMI near-shore fisheries into federal management measures in the Mariana Archipelago Fishery Ecosystem Plan (FEP). This FEP includes a management structure that emphasizes community participation and enhanced consideration of the habitat and ecosystem, protected species and other elements not typically incorporated in fishery management decision-making. Enforcement of federal fishery regulations is handled through a joint federal-territorial partnership. Annual reports on the fisheries are produced by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, with data collection responsibilities shared by various territorial and federal agencies. Geography [top]CNMI is comprised of 10 islands with a total land area of 179 sq. miles spread over 264,000 sq. miles of ocean. The highest elevation is 3,166 feet (965 m). The primary natural resource is fish. The southern islands are limestone with fringing coral reefs; the northern islands are volcanic, with active volcanoes on Anatahan, Pagan and Agrihan. Ninety percent of the 80,362 residents (2005 estimate) live on the island of Saipan and almost all the rest on Tinian and Rota. After government removal of residents following volcanic activity, only a half dozen people remain in the northern islands. Guam is the southernmost island of the Mariana Archipelago. It is 30 miles (48 km) long and 4 mi (6 km) to 12 mi (19 km) wide and is the largest island in Micronesia with an area of 209 sq. miles (541 km2). The highest point on the island is 1,332 feet (406 m). The Mariana Trench near Guam includes the deepest surveyed point in the oceans, at 35,797 feet (10,911 m) deep. The island experiences occasional earthquakes with recent magnitudes ranging from 5.0 to 8.7. Guam’s estimated population reached an estimated 171,019 in 2006, more than doubling the 1970 total of 85,000. The population is expected to continue to increase significantly with the relocation of the US military from Okinawa to Guam by 2014, including an estimated 8,000 marines, 9,000 family members and 12,000 to 15,000 contract workers. Political Status [top]CNMI is a commonwealth of the United States. Under the 1978 agreement with the United States, the CNMI has control of its own immigration, labor, tax and wage laws, but recent Congressional action has stripped CNMI of much of this control. A recent US court ruling also has given the US full control of the waters around the CNMI from 0 to 200 miles offshore. The people of CNMI are US citizens, but they can not vote in US presidential election. In 2008, Congress established a non-voting delegate’s seat in the US House of Representatives for CNMI, and the first CNMI delegate took office in January 2009. Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the US having organized under the Guam Organic Act of 1950. The people of Guam are US citizens. They are allowed to vote in the presidential election; however, since Guam doesn’t have an elector in the US Electoral College, their voting is merely a straw poll. Guam has a non-voting delegate in the US House of Representatives. History [top]A wave of seafaring people settled the Mariana Archipelago about 3,000 years ago. A second wave settled in 500 AD and is demarcated by the appearance of “latte” stones, ancient limestone columns, 5 to 20 feet high and 18 feet in diameter, capped with a large coral head. After discovery by Ferdinand Magellan in 1521, the Spanish ruled the archipelago from the Philippines and settled on the islands in 1668. By 1700, the indigenous Chamorro population was reduced from an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 to only 1,500 to 3,678 clustered in parishes in Guam and Saipan. But the population grew again. By 1800, several thousand Chamorro lived on Guam, where the Spanish had concentrated them to facilitate cultural and religious assimilation. Over the next two centuries, they retained their language and their core Chamorro values despite Spanish destruction of their canoes and restriction of their movements. The Refaluwasch (also known as Carolinians), from present-day Yap and Chuuk states in the Federated States of Micronesia, who had traded with the Chamorro prior to Western contact, began in 1815 to settle the de-populated Northern Mariana Islands by Spanish invitation. By 1880, the Spanish prohibited sailing canoes around the Mariana Islands. However, the Refaluwasch continued their ocean-going traditions and still retain them. Following the Spanish-American War, Spain ceded Guam to the United States in 1898 and sold the Northern Mariana Islands to Germany. During World War I, Japan declared war on Germany and invaded the Northern Mariana Islands. In 1919, the League of Nations awarded the Northern Mariana Islands to Japan. During World War II, Japan invaded Guam. In 1944, American forces secured the Mariana archipelago from Japan. In 1947 the US Navy began administrating the Mariana Islands after the newly formed United Nations gave the US trusteeship over them. In 1951, President Truman entrusted the US Department of the Interior to administer the islands under the US Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. During this period, the US government restricted entry to the Northern Mariana Islands and used them for various military training activities. Most of Tinian, still, is reserved for potential US military use. Discussion on the termination of the Trusteeship Agreement began in 1970. In 1975 a plebiscite was held, and 78% percent of the votes opted for a negotiated Covenant with the United States. In 1978, the "Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Political Union with the United States of America" was signed and the first elected governor began his first term in office. The people of the CNMI were granted US citizenship in 1986. In Guam, approximately one third of the island was procured for US military use including much of the island’s most desirable land and water resources. The ethnic composition of Guam’s population changed markedly with influx of labor from the Philippines and other areas to work on the US military projects. In the late 1970s, over 130,000 Vietnamese refugees transited Guam. Culture [top]The language of the indigenous Chamorro is from the Austronesian language group, the same proto-language from which Malaysian, Indonesian and Palauan languages are derived. The archipelago’s present social and demographic structure is largely the result of colonial experiences of the last 300 years. Due to centuries of acculturation, beginning with the Spanish conquest in the late 17th century, many elements of traditional Chamorro and Refaluwasch culture in Guam and the CNMI were lost. But certain traditional values and attitudes were retained and have been melded with elements of Western culture that are now a part of local life and custom. CNMI’s ethnic mix today is diverse, with 56.3% Asian, 36.3% Pacific Islander (including 21.3% Chamorro and 3.8% Refaluwasch or Carolinian), 1.8% Caucasian, 0.8% other and 4.8% mixed (2000 census). Through marriage and proximity, Carolinian and Chamorro have melded into a new social, cultural and linguistic order on Saipan that has been dubbed “Chamolinian.” Tinian and Rota remain strongly Chamorro. The official languages are English, Chamorro and Refaluwasch. In the decades following the end of World War II, the ethnic composition of Guam’s population changed markedly with influx of labor from the Philippines and other areas to work on the US military projects and the transiting of Vietnamese refugees. By 1980, less than half of the inhabitants were Chamorros. Based on the 2000 census, Guam’s current population is approximately 37.1% Chamorro, 26.3% Filipino, 11.3% other Pacific Islander, 6.9% Caucasian, 6.3% other Asian, 2.3% other ethnic origin or race, and 9.8% mixed. Economy [top]CNMI’s economy benefits substantially from US financial support. Tourism has been a key industry, employing about 50% of the work force and accounting for roughly one-fourth of CNMI’s gross domestic product. Japanese tourists have predominated. Garment production has been the most important industry with employment of mostly Chinese workers and sizable shipments to the US under duty and quota exemptions. However, these exemptions were not renewed by Congress and the garment industry is collapsing and Asian tourism is in precipitous decline. The military installation on Guam is one of the most strategically important US bases in the Pacific. Guam is dependent on military spending, tourism and exports of fish and handicrafts. Under the provisions of a special law of Congress, the Guam Treasury, rather than the US Treasury, receives federal income taxes paid by military and civilian Federal employees stationed in Guam. Japanese tourists make up 90% of their tourist market of over 1 million visitors annually. |
The Mariana Archipelago is
located on the other side of the dateline from the rest of the United
States and in that part of Oceania known as Micronesia. It is comprised
of the US Territory of Guam and the US Commonwealth of the Northern
Mariana Islands (CNMI), which are more closely related in heritage and
tradition to other Micronesian archipelagos than to the United States.
Guam and CNMI shared a common