Monumental disaster in the making?

(* See note below on photo.)

This is one of those cases where the kneejerk reaction seems to knock some people senseless. So proceed with caution and strap your knees down first.

The context of this case would normally lead the kneejerks to proceed cautiously and skeptically, but the visceral appeal of the subject matter cuts right through the thinking cap. It's exactly how magic is performed on stage.

The context is this: with Bush about to relegate himself to the history writers, he's set about to pre-write his legacy. This whole thing is about an attempt to put an environmental blue wash on the gross failings of his administration.

This is all about Bush's legacy.

And you think he didn't learn a thing or two from Al Gore?

Yes, and the respected but blinkered Pew Foundation has bought into the blue-wash so blindly, that it doesn't even see the irony in their labeling of the event as a "Global Ocean Legacy".

Ok, so what is this event? It is one noble in concept, depending on which end of the telescope you view it from. It is a plan to totally sequester great swaths of the Pacific Ocean over which the US claims sovereign domain from all economic activity.

And what's so wrong with that? Well, "economic activity" includes all fishing of any description, and one description of fishing in great swaths of the Pacific Ocean is "subsistence".

You see, the people who live on most of these so-called isolated islands have done so for thousands of years and fishing is what sustains them. And most of the fishing is not done by standing on a pier, but from outrigger canoes.

In fact, the tradition of much of the Pacific Islanders, particularly in Micronesia, is to roam the Ocean, much like the Plains Indians roamed the great prairies of North America, in search for food from the sea for which to feed, not only themselves, but their family, clan and village, and even to use as trade to the "high" islanders.

While much of the fishing is done in small one and two man boats close to shore, It is part of this tradition that islanders, and particularly those with no lagoon or reef, will often, even today, set off it their small outriggers and temporarily set up shop on small, unpopulated islands, to fish and prepare stores of sea foods to take back with them, sometimes staying for many weeks away in these isolated areas.

And, while what passes for the "big smoke" in these islands, being the main capital centers such as Guam, Saipan, Kosrae, Pohnpie and so on, have improved their technologies and scale of operations somewhat, they are in no way comparable to modern industrialized shipping operations, either in scale, technology, market or otherwise.

So, the effect of this monumental legacy leg-up for Bush is to deprive the people of the affected Pacific Islands of access to much of their "hunting grounds".

It is equivalent to condemning, say, a quarter of America's fertile farmlands to be set aside as nature preserves.

And to underline the political will behind this event, it should be noted that the original areas intended to be included in this plan involved areas off-shore from Alaska and elsewhere that contained oil industry assets, and these areas have already been taken out of the plan.

To make matters worse, this is a plan that is being rushed through in the dying days of the Bush administration as Executive Action. There is no Congressional involvement, and scarcely any consideration of local sentiment, which is running strongly against the plan, to the extent it impedes traditional uses and overrides traditional notions of sovereignty and local control.

So, Guambat encourages you to look at the situation with an open, skeptical and sensitive mind, and not be guided by your knees.

Guambat hails the concept of protection of the marine resources, but thinks that it should not be done in a rushed manner that threatens the cultural resources of the Pacific Island people. In Alaska, Australia and elsewhere, worthwhile conservation efforts are conducted in a manner that takes into account the ancient uses of the resources. The ancient uses did not bring those areas into near catastrophe and should not be punished by attempts to clean up from the modern uses which did bring about the damages.

If there are to be Pacific Island Marine reserves, and Guambat favours the notion, they should be established sensibly and not in some mad rush to polish Bush's rotten apple.

Suggested reading:

Bush Eyes Unprecedented Conservation Program
Letter to the Editor: A perspective on the Pew proposal
Bush proposes protections for Pacific islands, atolls
'Federalization' of Pacific waters
Gov’t urges Bush to reject monument proposal
editorial: Oppose the Marianas Monument

* Guambat cruised through a variety of Pacific Islands this year from Fiji to Guam. It was noteworthy that, even on big islands like Guadalcanal, the first people usually seen from the ship when approaching an island were single fishermen in their little boats.

This photo was taken on Ifalik Island and Lagoon, in Yap State, Federated States of Micronesia. Scenes such as these were captured by others, such as this and this, and Guambat can vouch that this is similar to what he saw just a few months ago.

FOLLOW UP:

26 Oct: Guam fishermen caught on to the downside to this issue a bit late in the game, and are trying to play catch-up in their efforts to maintain access rights to their southern fishing grounds. See Bush plan to restrict fishing:

Manny Duenas, with the Guam Fishermen's Co-op, said based on Hawaii's experience, a similar designation of a portion of Hawaiian waters restricted fishing to the extent that fishermen there could go out to monument-designated waters only on traditional boats, such as canoes.

And the Hawaiians were restricted from bringing their catch from the monument-designated waters back to their families, Duenas said.

If that occurs on Guam, prepare to see locally caught fish disappear from local store shelves and dinner tables, Duenas said.

Instead, people would be opening canned tuna or paying for more imported fish, he added.

29 Oct: 'Antiquities Act the wrong tool'

Rep. Madeleine Bordallo (D-GU) is urging the White House to conserve the waters around the CNMI's northern islands under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, a statute that requires public and business sector consultations on management issues, rather than unilaterally designating the region as a national monument.

“I view retention of local flexibility to manage our marine resources in a way that balances the protections needed for sustainable marine resources with a thriving economy as an important sovereignty issue,” she writes. “The process in place under the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, which involves formal public consultation of stakeholders, is a far better process that could be used to assess the merits of these proposals.”

Bordallo adds that local fisheries should remain under the control of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which regulates fisheries, and regional fisheries management councils.

“In short, where local conservation efforts have proven successful, I believe we should employ existing administrative processes that provide a proper role for ongoing local involvement in the management of our precious marine resources,” she writes. “I am extremely concerned that the process that is being employed now, in the last weeks of the Bush Administration, does not provide for adequate public input, let alone adequate congressional oversight.”