Tuesday, January 06, 2009

New ocean protection from the Bush administration

Yee-haw, we have some new protected areas and they're BIG ones. The latest action comes from the Bush administration's last days, as they look for an ocean environmental legacy.

They're not perfect on oceans, but this is real ocean conservation action, and they deserve credit for what they've done. With this action, President Bush has protected more ocean area than any other person in history.

It's a historic day for ocean protection.

The protected areas include the Central Pacific islands and atolls known as the Line Islands, extending nearly 2,000 miles and including Johnston Atoll; Howard, Baker and Jarvis Islands; Kingman Reef; Wake Island; and Rose Atoll, and the marine waters around the Northern Marianas in the western Pacific, including the Mariana Trench, the deepest canyon in the world.



photo: Palmyra atoll
map: Washington Post

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great news for future ocean preservation! Though I'm not clear that this has any substantial impact on the current use of those ocean habitats? Most of region is unihabited and the parts that are occupied will continue to be overfished etc. Perhaps he should take a look at the Florida Keys & Everglades. We can say Help but can he say "Papahanaumokuakea"?

Anonymous said...

:O *YAWN* O:

Yeah he banned fishing at the bottom of the Mariana Trench Whoop-Ti-Doo...