President Bush Names Three New Pacific Ocean Marine Reserves

President Bush has designated three large new marine reserves in the Pacific Ocean. The protected areas will cover 195,280 square miles and protect some of the most ecologically important areas of the world's oceans.

For more than a century, exiting American presidents have used their executive power to preserve wild lands. President Bush is modifying that legacy to include large scale protection of the oceans.

With less than 1% of the world's oceans having some kind of protection, governments and the public have been slow to realize the value of marine protected areas. But in the past year, a new trend has emerged of supersized marine reserves in the Pacific.

In February, the atoll nation of Kiribtai created the world's largest marine protected area around the pristine coral reefs of the Phoenix Islands in the central Pacific. That designation gained the attention of the Bush administration. The new American marine reserves will possibly create more momentum for the creation of other marine protected areas by other Pacific Island states including Australia and New Zealand.