Scientists Laud Bush's Blue Legacy But Want More

摘要

Setting a middle course between the wishes of marine biologists and the concerns of the Pentagon and recreational fishers, President George W. Bush this week dusted off a little-used law for the second time in his Administration to protect swaths of ocean totaling an area the size of Spain. On 6 January, using the 1906 Antiquities Act, which gives the president unfettered authority to protect any place of scientific or historical interest-and scientists say intact island ecosystems constitute such places-Bush created three separate national monuments spread out over eight remote patches of the Pacific totaling 505,000 square kilometers. Although short of the 2.2 million square kilometers many marine scientists had advocated, the monuments consolidate Bush's legacy as the president who has preserved far more ocean than any other: more than 850,000 square kilometers.