President Bush Establishes Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument

On June 15, 2006, President Bush signed a proclamation creating the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument. The Monument will enable nearly 140,000 square miles of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI) to receive our Nation's highest form of marine environmental protection. The Monument will preserve access for Native Hawaiian cultural activities, provide for carefully regulated educational and scientific activities, allow visitation in a special area around Midway Island, prohibit unauthorized access to the Monument, phase out commercial fishing over a five-year period, and ban other types of resource extraction and dumping of waste. This Monument is the largest single area dedicated to conservation in the history of our country and the largest protected marine area in the world. It is more than 100 times larger than Yosemite National Park, larger than 46 of our 50 states, and more than seven times larger than all our national marine sanctuaries combined.

The ten islands and atolls of the NWHI stretch over nearly 1,400 miles - the distance from Chicago to Miami. The undersea mountain ranges of the NWHI comprise the largest remote reef system in the world. In the tropical waters surrounding the northwestern part of the Hawaiian archipelago, there are more than 4,500 square miles of coral reef habitat thriving under the surface. The region holds the largest, healthiest, and most untouched coral reef system in the United States. The archipelago is home to more than 7,000 marine species - a quarter of which are found nowhere else on earth. The NWHI are also the primary home for the nearly 1,400 surviving Hawaiian Monk seals - virtually the entire population of this critically endangered species. They are also the breeding grounds for approximately 90 percent of the threatened Hawaiian Islands Green sea turtle population.

As part of this proclamation, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Commerce will work with the State of Hawai`i and the public to develop a plan to manage the new monument. The proclamation will also charge NOAA to use its expertise to oversee the marine areas, and the Fish and Wildlife Service to apply their skills to the wildlife refuge areas. The designation of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument will protect our natural wealth for the generations that follow and lay the foundation for even greater discoveries and conservation to come.

Source: White House Press Release dated June 15, 2006
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