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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Sunday, June 12, 2005

COMMENTARY
Dazzling reefs must be saved

By Robert Ballard, Leon Panetta, Jean-Michel Cousteau and Sylvia Earle

We stand at a point in history that will forever change what kind of planet we leave the generations to come. Yet most Americans are unaware that they have such an urgent decision to make. We have the ability in this age to decide to leave another Yosemite for our children and grandchildren, or leave to them yet another place that has been injured and exhausted by unmanaged consumption.

A monk seal swims along coral reef near Necker Island in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Some are pushing for the world's most remote archipelago to become a national marine sanctuary.

AP library photo

We are an adventurous and forward-looking country. Our nation began with brave explorers voyaging across rough seas in pursuit of a better life, and then settling along the coasts to take advantage of the ocean's bounty. This inaugurated a long tradition of Americans using the oceans' seemingly endless resources to satisfy immediate hungers, while giving little thought to their limits or their incredible additional potential.

And these days, most of us know that the oceans are in deep and serious trouble, and badly in need of protection. So let's imagine what life would be like if we could make the right choice — to protect and repair our oceans while reviving our pioneer spirit.

The potential Yosemite in question is known as the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands — the world's most remote archipelago. Unknown to most Americans, this vast region stretches 1,200 nautical miles north of the populated islands we think of as Hawai'i. It encompasses an astounding 132,000 square miles — an area larger than all the nation's national parks combined. These living coral-reef colonies are a spectacular underwater landscape — home and haven to more than 7,000 species, including marine mammals, fishes, sea turtles, birds and invertebrates. At least one quarter are found only in Hawai'i. A distressing number are rare, threatened or endangered.

We have a rare opportunity to relive a glorious moment. It is like we have stepped back in time — back to the creation of the nation's first national parks, when we insisted that some places deserve to be set aside. Today, we can decide that there are other areas worth such protection, fragile natural marvels worth being designated a national marine sanctuary.

The waters surrounding the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are a deserving candidate for national marine sanctuary status, worthy of our best efforts to safeguard forever the unique geology, biology and cultural history of this vast, ecologically rich region. Isolation has helped make these coral reefs some of the healthiest and most extensive reef ecosystems remaining on the planet. This ocean wilderness, largely undisturbed by human presence, offers a rare glimpse of what a thriving ecosystem looks like. Here, nature — not man — dominates, and large predators, such as jacks, sharks, and groupers, still roam in swirling abundance.  

Marine sanctuaries such as these have the promise to become another Yellowstone or Grand Canyon — enlarging our vistas, teaching our history and restoring our souls. Each could become a living research laboratory, where we probe the secrets of the universe and learn how the oceans might play a larger role in supporting human life. All this can be done while strengthening the oceans' fragile hold on survival.

In this generation, we have this opportunity to set aside this area for all time. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Sanctuary Program has for several years been in the process of designating the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands a national marine sanctuary. We must act now to do just that, and we must ensure we protect all of it.  

The waters around the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands exist as proof that there are still a few special areas out there. While reminding us of how much has been lost — other places just as special, once as abundant as this one — they also offer hope. Our active stewardship, if we can but summon the will, can turn the tide and heal our troubled waters.

We call on the nation to have the vision of Teddy Roosevelt and resolve of John Kennedy to set the waters surrounding the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands aside as a national marine sanctuary — so we can know we are leaving a legacy for all.

Editor's note: Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., introduced legislation Thursday to address threats to the world's oceans, including tougher rules to reduce overfishing and strict new limits on agricultural and storm-water runoff. The measure also would spin off the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration into an independent agency similar to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The legislation faces an uphill battle in Congress, which has not taken up a broad overhaul of the nation's oceans policy for more than three decades.

Robert Ballard is an ocean explorer, a member of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and the discoverer of the Titanic. Leon Panetta is a former member of Congress, former White House chief of staff, director of the Panetta Institute and headed the Pew Ocean Commission. Jean-Michel Cousteau is an ocean explorer and president of the Ocean Futures Society. Sylvia Earle is an explorer in residence at the National Geographic Society; chairwoman and founder of Deep Ocean Exploration and Research. They are on the board of trustees of the National Marine Sanctuaries Foundation. They wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.