Jaunted

You don't hear the word all that often in regular conversation, but atolls are making headlines these days, along with islands, reefs, trenches, undersea volcanoes, and thermal vents. That's because the president recently designated three large areas of the Pacific Ocean as marine national monuments, effectively closing off nearly 200,000 square miles of the ocean to fishing, development, and mining of the sea floor. The new marine national monuments include the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument (site of the deepest place on earth), the Pacific Islands Marine National Monuments (including Kingman Reef, Palmyra Atoll, Howland, Baker, and Jarvis Islands, Johnston Atoll, and Wake Island), and the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument (a pinkish reef around a remote part of American Samoa).

The new marine national monuments come in the wake of a similar, 140,000-square-mile area near the Northwest Hawaiian Islands that was given protection in 2006. While there's still much work to be done to protect our oceans, this is a good start. It would be a shame to lose such a vital part of the planet to pollution and development before I've had the chance to pilot a sailboat in search of my dictionary atoll.

[Photo: Victor Ozols]

Related Stories:
· Fact Sheet: Marine National Monuments [whitehouse.gov]
· Saving the Seas [The Economist]
· Bush to Create Three Marine Monuments [LA Times]
· Marine Parks Coverage [Jaunted]