Clinton Designates Watery Reserve

President Clinton on Monday established the largest protected area in the United States, an 84-million-acre reserve around the northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

Mr. Clinton issued an executive order creating the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller. The area contains nearly 70 percent of the United States' coral reefs, as well as pristine remote islands, atolls and submerged lagoons.

The president said his actions were designed to preserve the islands' natural beauty "for a long time. I hope, forever."

He said President Theodore Roosevelt "recognized the same imperative" almost a century ago when he established the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge.

"He knew then that our natural wonders on land and sea form an integral part of who we are as a people, and that every generation of Americans must do its part to sustain and strengthen this legacy," Mr. Clinton said. "Today we do just that, incorporating the refuge he created into a new, vast and wonderful Yellowstone of the sea."

Mr. Clinton said it is imperative to move swiftly to protect the reefs. He noted that 90 percent of the coral reefs in the central Indian Ocean have died and that reefs elsewhere in the world are threatened due to pollution, fishing and other activities by man.

The executive order makes a vast stretch of Hawaiian reefs off limits to oil and gas production. It would ban oil, gas and mineral production in the reserve, prevent the removal of its coral and cap commercial and recreational fishing at current levels, according to a White House statement.

In addition, the order designates 15 "reserve preservation areas," making up about five percent of the reserve, where commercial and recreational fishing, anchoring and collecting or touching coral would be banned outright.

Not everyone is happy about the new reserve. Hawaiian fishermen and restaurateurs levied criticism today against the designation.

Members of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, one of eight regional councils established by Congress to regulate use of waters three to 200 miles off U.S. shores, have criticized the fishing restrictions as too stringent.

Council members say the plan would close all commercial fisheries except bottomfishing in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and would close nearly one-third of the area's bottomfishing grounds.

Almost half of Hawaii's commercially caught bottomfish - such as opakapaka and onaga (pink and red snapper), and hapuupuu (sea bass) - comes from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, the council said in a news release.

"The Council is extremely concerned about the socioeconomic, fishery management and legal ramifications," chairwoman Judith uthertz wrote in a letter to President Clinton. "Fishing effort will likely increase around the main Hawaiian Islands, where stocks are locally depleted. Prices will likely increase, as main Hawaiian Island bottomfish are smaller and less abundant."

George Mavrothalassitis, owner of Chef Mavro restaurant, told the council Friday the limits on bottomfishing would cut back on the fresh fish supply and drive up prices.

Cha Smith of the environmental group Kahea says those concerns exaggerate the likely impact of the executive order.

"These remarkable living structures, built cell by cell over millions of years, are at once irreplaceable and valuable," Mr. Clinton said. "Coral reefs are beautiful, but more than that, they are home to thousands of species of fish and wildlife found nowhere else on earth."

Mr. Clinton announced his action during a speech at the National Geographic Society. He urged his audience to continue the steps he has taken to preserve the environment, "no matter who becomes president, no matter the partisan divide of the Congress."



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