President Bush is not known for his environmental cred. For the first six years of his presidency, the White House focused its efforts on creating deceptively benign names for horrendous bits of legislation such as the Healthy Forests Act and the Clear Skies Initiative (of which Al Franken said, “The purpose of the Clear Skies Initiative is to clear the skies of birds.”)
But last week President Bush declared the creation of the largest marine preserve in the world, setting aside a group of Hawaiian islands that are home to one of the most healthy and robust coral reef ecosystems left, larger even than the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Fred Krupp, head of Environmental Defense, declared the move “as important as the establishment of Yellowstone.” To keep consistent with their legislation-naming style, the Bush Administration is considering “Ocean Death Bomb” and “The Bloody Seals Act” as potential titles for the new measure.
Bush said he drew inspiration from a documentary on the island chain’s biological resources shown at the White House in April by Jean-Michel Cousteau, the marine explorer and filmmaker whose father was the late Jacques Cousteau.
What clinched the decision for Mr. Bush was when Jean-Michel paused the “documentary” minutes before the climax, and promised that if Bush set aside the marine ecosystem as a national monument, Nemo would be reunited with his father.
And he was. Thank you, Mr. Bush.
Vast Hawaii Sea Area Now A National Monument (NPR)
Bush Creates World’s Biggest Ocean Preserve (MSNBC)
To view a slideshow of images of the preserve, accompanied by weird, crappy Hawaiian hippie music: