Bush creates huge marine reserves- thanks to YOU
I’ve just returned home after meeting with President Bush and the First Lady to witness his history-making designation of three huge marine protected areas in the Pacific Ocean. And you helped!
Your signature on MCBI's Care2 petition to the President added the much-needed public support to create these new national marine monuments – and I sincerely thank you.
Our new Marine National Monuments are gigantic, protecting 96,809 square miles of the Pacific Ocean (larger than the United Kingdom!). Indeed, these new monuments are much larger than any other protected areas in the United States, with one exception: Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, which encompasses 139,797 square miles of the Pacific Ocean (larger than Germany!), and which MCBI worked to get protected in 2006.
Nobody in history has ever catalyzed so much protection for so much of the Earth’s surface.
Moreover, every penny has made a difference. When all the counting is done, we will find that MCBI spent considerably less than $1 million over the last 5 years to win protection for these vast areas of the tropical Pacific, less than a penny per acre!
And MCBI has bigger areas in view, which we will work to protect in years to come…
None of it could have happened without those who dug into their pockets so generously to support our efforts.
I want to promise you this: With a new administration led by a brilliant new President who has appointed a world-class marine biologist (and longstanding friend), Dr. Jane Lubchenco, to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), MCBI’s greatest successes are yet to come.
So in this time of exceptional political opportunity, I invite you to invest in our next efforts to save the oceans’ best places, and to participate with us in many more celebrations.
For the Earth,
Elliott A. Norse, Ph.D.President |
