Earth Equity News

Bush Contemplates Additional Huge Ocean Reserves. By John Neilson and David Malakoff, NPR, May 25, 2008. "The Bush administration is considering launching one of the biggest conservation programs in U.S. history. If implemented, President George W. Bush could, with the stroke of a pen, protect vast stretches of U.S. territorial waters from fishing, oil exploration and other forms of commercial development. The initiative could also create some of the largest marine reserves in the world -- far larger than national parks like Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon... The idea is drawing strong support from conservationists who typically have been harshly critical of the Bush administration's overall environmental record. But some of the possible reserves are already attracting opposition from local leaders and industry groups and from some members of Congress... The list [of chosen sites] hasn't been released to the public... But conservation groups have identified some of the leading nominees. By far the most ambitious proposal is to protect more than 600,000 square miles around a number of small, mostly uninhabited islands in the Central Pacific. The islands -- including Palmyra, Howland and Baker -- are surrounded by biologically rich coral reefs and are home to huge seabird colonies. If implemented, the reserve would be among the largest in the world and about three times as large as the Hawaiian monument. Another proposal calls for protecting more than 100,000 square miles of notoriously rough waters around the Northern Mariana Islands, in the Western Pacific. The area includes the 36,000-foot-deep Marianas Trench... The Antiquities Act of 1906... gives the president broad powers to protect areas of 'historic or scientific interest' without congressional approval... Bush, in 2006, used the Antiquities Act to create one of the world's largest marine reserves, around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands."