Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Editorial: A jewel of the Pacific won't clear the air
President Bush's new monument boosts his environmental record but doesn't repair it.
From the RoundTable blog
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President Bush has demonstrated little interest in the great outdoors except where his friends want to exploit the public's precious natural resources. At least he had not until last week, when he designated a massive national monument in the Pacific Ocean.
The 3 million acres of coral and ocean around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is a worthy addition to the nation's protected lands, but whether the decision marks a newly kindled presidential passion for pristine wilderness remains to be seen.
Bush's order preserves a stunning gift for the future. The monument will protect about 7,000 species that live in its waters, prohibiting nearly all fishing there.
Americans will not measure its value in terms of visitors per year. It will be a locus of biodiversity seen by few. Its worth will lie in the knowledge that unspoiled places exist and that the nation preserves them.
Not that Bush has found the same argument persuasive in other contexts. He and his congressional supporters have pushed hard for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, at times invoking its remoteness as a mitigating factor for wells and pipelines. As long as no one suspects there is oil under the coral, it will probably remain safe.
Nor have other existing national monuments, parks, wildernesses and forests fared well under Bush's watch. He and Congress have been draining resources that pay for protection, threatening to end more than a century of environmental stewardship.
Visitors pay more, commercial interests develop inside parks, industries extract natural resources, and still funding comes up short. The Blue Ridge Parkway, the most-visited national park, has a $200 million backlog of maintenance projects.
Which will be Bush's environmental legacy? If he returns to his old way, people might think his decision for the waters near Hawaii was nothing more than a cynical political distraction. One monument, no matter how spectacular, cannot alone offset the environmental assault of the last five years.
