Perhaps the greatest achievements of the Bush administration thus far have been in its efforts to save the world’s oceans. Yes, Bush did try to repeatedly lessen the protection given to endangered species under the EPA, he did open Red woods to logging, he has unrelentingly supported non-green and unclean energy resources, and yes he even pushed very hard to increase the area in which offshore drilling is allowed, BUT he has done several things in the last 8 years that factually make him the person who has done the MOST for the Earth’s oceans, ever! I’m sure this was not a personal passion of his, but be it by virtue of his environmental advisors or however inadvertently so, we do have something to thank George Bush about.
In 2006, Bush’s admin created the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. In the face of severe objections by commercial interests, they banned fishing in about 362,600 square kilometers of the sea. This is an area larger than all the national parks of the States combined.
Ocean fishing has a much larger effect on the seas than was once imagined. Our consumption (and waste) of all food including that from the sea is so high that a conspicuous difference is created in the world’s waters. Needless to say, almost every ecosystem living in the upper 40 meters of water is affected in one way or another by our fishing industry alone. In the non-deep areas of the sea, practices such as bottom-trawling do not even spare life at the sea bed. In the most destructive form of this method, two trawler ships lay out a large net across the sea floor one end being held by each, and then literally sweep the floor clean. Everything that lies in the path of their nets (and that means everything – whether plant, animal or mineral) is captured in the net and pulled out. Of course over 80% of whats collected is junk to the fishermen, and is tossed back into the sea. On the one hand this seems like a good thing, that at least we return the dead plants and fish back to be decomposed, but undoutedly this must greatly imbalance the local ecosystem.
In its latest achievement, the Bush admin created another national monument around some of the American Islands in the Western Pacific Ocean. Covering the Marianas trench, the volcanic arc of the Pacific, and several islands and atolls, a total area of about 500,000 sq. km is now protected. Apparently some of the islands here hold U.S. naval bases and so “unhindered” access will be allowed to their vessels, but without fishing and mineral mining, the local life is bound to excel. Some recent studies have shown that due to increased temperatures and higher carbon density in the waters, the global growth rate of corals has decreased in the past few years. Previously a coral system could revive itself in as short as 10 years, but now at least 4 times that time is expected. So whatever damage has been done in this area as of recent will at least have a chance to recover, no matter how slowly.
The very fact that the area involved is half a million sq. kms. should be reason enough to rejoice. Richard Leakey has expressed concerns over the effectiveness of “national parks” (though he was referring to terrestrial ones). He suggests that isolating already decreased populations to a yet smaller area like in African national parks, creates more competition between its creatures, especially for those that have to re-adjust to slightly modified conditions. This leads to a higher rate of natural extinction than the norm. The concept can be stretched to water national parks also. But in this case, I think the very magnitude of the size concerned lifts most of the dangers that might come with traditional national parks. For reference, consider that the entire island of New Guinea is 786,000 sq. km in total area. Imagine about 3/4ths of that being something like a national park. Certainly this is a positive.
This is not something I’ve said ever before, or I think I’m going to say ever again, but for setting on a true ‘blue’ legacy, thank you Mr. Bush.
There is a BBC article covering the story here and a PEW press release covering the event here. Bush is set to make his public announcement of this on Tuesday evening.
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Maybe I’m just cynical, ok, yeah I totally am, but this strikes me as something of a poison pill for Obama. The republicans are on the way out, so they won’t have to deal with the cost of active protection and the inability to exploit this rather large area. Given Bush’s track record, and the current economy, I’d say this is a clever way of forcing the economics of environmentalism right up the Democrats collective behinds.