President Bush to add marine reserves; not all are applauding

News flash: President Bush today will create three national monuments in the Pacific Ocean, protecting 195,000 square miles around the Northern Mariana Islands, as reported today in the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere. The monuments: Rose Atoll, the Mariana Trench and the Pacific Remote Islands.

Add this to the 145,000 square miles surrounding the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, which was protected in 2006, and you have by far the largest area set aside for protection by any political leader in the world.

Reaction: That's a lot of water to be spared from deep-sea miners and fishermen. Environmentalists, some of whom would like to see more or even all ocean made off-limits to intrusive human activity, are surely applauding the move.

Fishermen? Naturally, they're upset.

Said Mike Nussman, president of the American Sportfishing Assn., on the group's website:  "What most people will fail to realize is that this designation process took approximately 60 days to complete. There was no proposal or scientific information available for public review and comment.

"We in the sportfishing community have significant issues with any process where the outcome prohibits people from accessing public resources, particularly when there is no open, transparent process to do so."

Most commercial fishing will be banned and sportfishing will be severely restricted within the zone. In an interview with the Washington Post, Nussman said the new policy presumes recreational fishing to be "an evil activity."

Bush will enact the closure with a stroke of his pen, using unilateral presidential powers provided under the Antiquities Act, bypassing the environmental review and public comment process.

He'll go down as the president who protected the most ocean, but one who did not do nearly enough to combat global warming, which is presumed responsible for killing coral within the very reserves he's about to create.

Said Brendan Cummings of the Center for Biological Diversity, in a BBC News story: "Ultimately, Bush's legacy as a climate criminal will far outweigh his ocean legacy, as any benefit coral reefs receive from this monument designation will be bleached away by warming seas."

So being an angler and a person concerned about the environment, I have mixed feelings. Imposing sweeping closures unilaterally is not wise policy. Do you think a president should be so empowered? Or do you agree with Vice President Dick Cheney, who said this sets a dangerous precedent?

-- Pete Thomas

Photo: Raccoon butterflyfish swim off Palmyra Atoll, part of three national monuments being created by President Bush. The designations will add greatly to the nearly 140,000 square miles of Pacific waters protected by Bush in 2006. Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Houdini]

"SportFishing" ? Sounds like society has too much time on its hands. Maybe the recession will cut some of that time out. If you eat what you catch that could be defended. How different is "sportfishing" than shooting fish in a barrel and leaving the dead fish to rot? (or shooting buffalo from a train in the great plains, 140 years ago and leaving the carcasses to rot? at least then they did that to kill the native Americans by destroying their food, sos the settlers could occupy the land...ha!)

[MikeS]

Being an Alaskan for almost 40 years, and involved in commercial fishing in Bristol Bay, I am again astounded at this ignorant and standard practice of Pres. Bush to not pay attention to the envirnment, or science. Mr Bush just opened up the waters of Bristol Bay which is the largest red salmon fishery in the world to oil drilling and he is permitting mining in the spawning headwaters of 2 of the 4 largest Bristol Bay Rivers. I can only pray that Mr. Obama will correct these errors before it is too late. This new legacy he has given the Pacific is great, but is a dollar short, and a day late.

[Albatross37]

Please tell me the last time that more than 25 sportfisherman per year were at Rose Atoll, Kingman's Reef, or Palmyra Atoll? Once again when anybody (even Bush) does something to protect the oceans and the habitat that allows sportfisherman to even have a "sport", it is these same fisherman that cry about it. More disturbingly they have the nerve to bring up "science" as if it would somehow support their sport of "stress and release" fishing as not damaging to fish populations. I think there are still a few 100 million square miles of Ocean available to sportfisherman (much closer to where they might actually live) that if they want to fish they might be able to figure out how.

[Swampy]

I have very little sympathy for any sport hunting or fishing. If, on the other hand, one is hunting, or fishing for what is commonly recognized as legal game for the purpose of attaining food, That's a different scenario. As for the declaration of this sanctuary and it's supposed benefits, I would be suspicious of any Presidential declarations that involve public use rights, when the public has not seen the document and it's provisions. I am an Alaskan also. My concerns are always with the preservation of our environment. I am also a realist, in that I have witnessed the ignorance foisted upon the public by Al Gore and the Scientists that support his point of view. What we don't get to hear is the huge number of Scientists that declare his theories as unfounded, unsupported speculation that flies in the face of documented history to the contrary. The act of opening Bristol Bay for drilling is in fact based on findings that were developed by scientific studies. The problem is, if you oppose it, you discount those legitimate studies as irresponsible, or non-existent. This is a situation that is 180 from the Global Warming crowds extrapolations. Actually, the term "extrapolation" may be in-appropriate, since a base substance is required in order to achieve an extrapolation. AS for the mining in Bristol Bay, a lot of mis-information was publicized by environmentalist backed groups, and the truth may lie somewhere in between. The fact of the matter is that, no mining is allowed without strict state and federal oversight and regulation. I don't want my food sources destroyed any more than anyone else. I want the food to be safe and plentiful, but at the same time I don't want mis-information and lies directing my life.

[oneStarman]

NATIONAL MONUMENT ACT - Bush has always been absurdly hostile to environmentalism. I doubt that it is interest for the oceans that has caused him to lay claim to hundreds of thousands of square miles of the Pacific, and as was noted the Marrianna Trench. The national monument act allows the President, with the stroke of a pen and without congressional approval put lands and now it would seem oceans under U.S. Government control - to what end? I shudder to think.

[Al Pine]

this was no less than a contrived and nasty act towards the people of the Marianas, who did not want it. there was no formal process involved and no objective scientific review. a monument was also proposed for the Gulf of Mexico, but guess what, thats where georgie will be making his retirement money, drilling the snot out of his own backyard. so, he put the monuments as far await from his playground as possible. It would not surprise me if the marinas take this to the world court.

[Ed]

There's no land around there you can get to, and the trench makes it the cleanest ocean water on earth. Instantaneous protection from tourism, fishing, and exploring: If preserved and monitored properly, this would be a good place for the Bush family and some Saudi Princes to park their Paul Allen type yacht-ships (google THAT boat) and live for months, while losers fight their loser wars.