Date published: 2006/06/15
The BBC says:
US President George W Bush has designated a swathe of Hawaiian islands as a US national monument, making them the world's largest marine sanctuary.
He signed a law on Thursday which will give the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands the highest protected status in US law.
The area, nearly as big as California, supports more than 7,000 species, a quarter of which occur nowhere else.
Environmental groups welcomed the decision, although fishing industry bodies have raised concerns.
The designated site - more than 140,000 square miles (362,000 square kilometres) of reefs, atolls and shallow seas - is just larger than the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia, previously the world's largest protected marine area.
Amazing that Bush would do this. Obviously the affected fishermen have not donated enough money to the Republican Party.
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