Aug. 10 (UPI) — A federal judge in Hawaii has outlawed commercial fishing in the Pacific Islands Heritage marine national monument, a protected and fragile ecosystem in the Pacific Ocean.

The action by judge Michael WJ Smith reverses a decision made by a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that banned fishing in parts of the monument that was signed by President Barack Obama while he was in office.

Smith’s ruling comes about a week after President Donald Trump signed a proclamation that reveres federal fishing regulations in the monument, a world heritage fund site that is home to marine mammals, seabirds and coral reefs.

Friday’s court order by Smith means that commercial fishing cannot occur in waters 50 to 200 nautical miles around Johnson Atoll, Jarvis Island and Wake Island, and must stop immediately.

“The Fisheries Service cannot ignore our perspectives as the native people who belong to the islands and to the ocean that surrounds us,” said Solomon Pili, Kaho’ohalahala, a founding member of Kapa’a, the Conservation Council for Hawaii and the Center for Biological Diversity.

“The law guarantees a process where we can advocate for protecting the generations of our children’s children who are yet to be born.”

Earthjustice, an environmental conservation group, filed a lawsuit in May, arguing the National Marine Fisheries Service violated federal law by sidestepping the formal rulemaking process required to change fishing rules, which mandates public notice and comment.

President George W. Bush established the moment in 2009. It comprised 500,000 square miles of a remote part of the central Pacific Ocean southwest of Hawaii. Obama widened the area in 2014.