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President George Bush has this week designated three areas of the Pacific Ocean as Marine National Monuments.  Combined, the designations are said to represent the largest fully protected area in the world - with an area of 195 274 square miles (over half a million km²).

One of the three new marine protected areas, the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, now protects the pristine coral reef ecosystems around Kingman Reef, Palmyra Atoll, Howland, Baker and Jarvis Islands, Johnston Atoll and Wake Island in the central Pacific.  The boundaries around each of these seven remote islands and atolls extend seaward for 50 nautical miles, rather than the full 200 nautical miles representing the Exclusive Economic Zone.   

The Rose Atoll Marine National Monument protects a remote atoll in American Samoa.  Together these two MPAs support large numbers of 19 species of tropical seabirds, notably over three million pairs of Sooty Terns Sterna fuscata.  The third MPA is the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument, the site of the world’s deepest ocean floor.

Wake Island has supported tiny (<five pairs) breeding populations of Laysan Phoebastria immutabilis and Black-footed P. nigripes Albatrosses within the last 10 years.  Both these North Pacific Albatrosses will be considered for listing within ACAP at the Third Session of the Meeting of Parties, to be held in Bergen, Norway from 27 April to 1 May.  Wake falls near the southern boundary of the two albatross species’ at-sea distributions.

Destruction or extraction of protected resources within the boundaries of the monuments will be prohibited, as will commercial fishing in the coral reef ecosystem areas. Scientific and recreational activities may be permitted consistent with the care and management of protected resources.

President Bush also announced the USA’s first new UNESCO World Heritage (http://whc.unesco.org/) Site nominations in 15 years. One of the two sites to be nominated is the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument declared in 2006 (in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands; http://hawaiireef.noaa.gov/), which supports large populations of Laysan and Black-footed Albatrosses, on such as islands as Midway and Kure Atolls, Laysan and Lisianski and the French Frigate Shoals (click here for a map).

For more information on the new US Marine National Monuments go to:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2009/01/20090106-4.html

 http://www.matangitonga.to/article/usa_090109_1024_pf.shtml 

http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/stories/090107.html.

For information on the conservation of North Pacific albatrosses visit http://www.fws.gov/pacific/migratorybirds/Albatross%20Action%20Plan%20ver.1.0.pdf

The USA has announced its intention to accede to ACAP.  Click here for an earlier news item.