President George W Bush is to announce the creation of the world’s largest marine protection area spanning some 505,000 sq km in the Pacific Ocean, a spokesman said.

The three areas to be designated as “marine national monuments” include the Mariana Trench and northern Mariana Islands, the Rose Atoll located in American Samoa and a chain of remote islands in the Central Pacific.

Establishing marine national monuments aims to ensure that certain resources are protected, such as rare fish and bird species, coral reefs and underwater active volcanoes, said a top Bush aide on the environment.

“This is very, very big,” James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality Issues, told reporters ahead of Bush’s announcement today (January 6).

“In the last several years, it’s on par with what we’ve been able to accomplish on land over the course of the last 100 years,” he said yesterday, noting that the total area would “comprise the largest areas of ocean or ocean seabed set aside as marine protected areas in the world.”

Collectively, the three areas will nudge out the Phoenix Island Protected Area, established in 2008 by the South Pacific nation of Kiribati as the world’s largest protected area.

They also top Bush’s last such announcement of a marine protection area in 2006 — 363,000 square kilometres of Pacific Ocean near the northwestern Hawaiian islands.

(Agencies)

Similar Posts:

• Spain Adds Safeguards for Columbretes Isles in Mediterranean
• Chaos after mass floods
• Toxic algal blooms on the rise in Indian waters
• Kiribati Islanders Seek Land to Buy as Rising Seas Threaten
• Marine legend Lt Gen Victor Krulak dies at 95