George Bush’s environmental legacy

A STELLAR ONE INDEED WITH the elections over, one might be forgiven for thinking that George Bush has nothing left to do. Any large or controversial measures can be undone when the new administration arrives in January. So what is there left to occupy a president except long walks and a spot of fishing? In fact, there is at least one last big environmental project that Mr Bush wants to complete: creating a vast new marine nature reserve in the Pacific. Last year, Mr Bush established the world’s largest marine protected area—Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, in north-western Hawaii. The monument became the largest single conservation area in American history, home to some 7,000 species, including the monk seal, spinner dolphins and the green sea turtle. It was a big step, but now the question is whether he can pull off the same trick on an even grander scale, by fully protecting two vast areas of the Pacific Ocean from fishing and mineral exploitation. The Bush administration will be remembered for its opposition to the Kyoto protocol, and generally dragging its feet over the whole issue of climate change. Moreover, the Environmental Protection Agency has had a troubled time under his presidency. So now the question is whether Bush can, in a final departing flourish, do something to at least partly counterbalance his dubious green record. And the press reaction to the Hawaiian reserve was so positive that he wants to do the same thing again on a grander scale. At issue are two remote, American-administered regions in the western and central Pacific totalling a vast area more than 750,000 square miles in size. This includes portions of the Northern Mariana Islands (including the 6.8-mile-deep Mariana Trench, the deepest ocean canyon in the world), Rose Atoll in American Samoa and a series of atolls and reefs known as the Line Islands. Unique and extraordinary marine wildlife flourish in these remote regions. Nearby reefs are some of the most diverse and pristine in the world, with an abundance of fish and large predators that have vanished from most other reefs in the world. If only things were as simple as drawing a line on a map: behind the proposal, controversy rages. Greens want nothing less than full protection, so that no extractive or destructive activities will be allowed: no fishing, no drilling for oil or minerals, and certainly no dumping. Papahānaumokuākea is fully protected, they say, and so should this new one be. Full protection for the reserve in the central Pacific, which encompasses an area known as the Line Islands, should present few problems. It is isolated from population centres and mostly uninhabited. But there are arguments now about the extent to which full protection around the Mariana Islands would hurt the local economy by barring fishing and energy exploration. And various interest groups are lobbying behind the scenes to weaken any protection for these islands. Work on the plan will go on right up to the final days of the administration. Indeed, Claudia McMurray, America’s assistant secretary of state for oceans, environment and science, says that although everyone is working hard to get the designation sorted out, some of the final details about management may have to be worked out by the new administration (the details of Papahānaumokuākea took five years to hammer out). But an announcement about the extent of the designation is expected any day soon. And when it arrives it will be an interesting final judgement on the extent to which Mr Bush has been able to shake off his oilman’s legacy of environmental indifference, and acquire, rather surprisingly, a green halo.