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Bush to Protect Three Areas in Pacific
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The decision to protect some isolated islands along with the Mariana Trench, the deepest ocean canyon in the world, also represents a strategic shift by ocean conservationists, who have decided they are better off safeguarding some of the sea's most pristine regions than trying to curb fishing, drilling and other "extractive" activity everywhere.
Diane Regas, managing director of the Environmental Defense Fund's oceans program, said there is "an emerging realization" that some places need to be cordoned off while others "need to be managed so people can survive on the fish and enjoy fishing."
But Michael Nussman, president of the American Sportfishing Association, decried the new policy, saying that it presumes recreational fishing is "an evil activity."
"If you're going to keep the public out of a public area, you need a darned good reason to do that," said Nussman, whose group represents manufacturers, retailers and wholesalers who supply the sport fishing industry. "We don't think they've met that 'darned good reason' test."
Some experts suggested that the administration should have imposed more stringent protections in the three marine monuments, which include Rose Atoll on American Samoa; seven islands that constitute the central Pacific's Line Islands; and a grouping that includes the three northernmost islands in the northern Marianas chain and the Mariana Trench.
Enric Sala, a National Geographic researcher who has conducted two expeditions to the Line Islands, questioned why the protections extend only 50 miles from shore, rather than the 200 miles over which the United States can claim exclusive economic jurisdiction, and why they do not encompass the water above the rim of the Mariana Trench.
"In the ocean, everything is connected," said Sala, noting that the sharks that inhabit the Line Islands feed on seabirds that travel hundreds of miles from shore in search of food for their chicks.
Connaughton said the administration had determined that going beyond 50 miles would not provide significant "scientific benefits for conservation" and that there was no scientific record demonstrating that the waters above the trench need to be protected.
Still, Sala welcomed protection for the regions, which he called "the instruction manual to understand how coral reefs function, and the baseline to understand what we've done in terms of destruction of the coral reef ecosystems. . . . For a president that's not very green, ironically, this is going to be his largest legacy."
