A NECKLACE of uninhabited islands spanning 140,000 square miles of the Pacific — almost twice the size of Britain — was declared the world’s biggest marine nature reserve yesterday.

President Bush’s designation of the northwestern Hawaiian island chain as a national monument was being described by administration officials as the “single largest act of conservation in US history”.

It also represents a remarkable departure for the President, whose relationship with his country’s vast environmental lobby has been one of intense, and mutual, contempt. Only five years ago, the Administration was considering removing the limited protections from the area’s coral reef ecosystem that had been introduced by President Clinton.

Mr Bush is widely regarded as the “least green” President of the past 40 years, having abolished or altered no fewer than 50 environmental protections dating back to the Nixon era. At the same time he has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, sought to privatise federal lands, pushed for oil drilling in the Alaskan Arctic National Refuge, allowed logging within national parks and relaxed wetlands protection rules.

The new marine reserve was formally announced at a special White House signing ceremony yesterday.

“To put this area in context, this national monument is more than 100 times larger than Yosemite National Park,” Mr Bush said. “It’s larger than 46 of our 50 states, and more than seven times larger than all our national marine sanctuaries combined. This is a big deal.”

Fishing will be phased out over the next five years, and the mining of coral for jewellery will be banned, along with other practices that could cause damage.

The northwest Hawaiian islands are a chain of delicate reefs, islands, atolls and pinnacles, 100 miles wide, stretching 1,400 miles out across the Pacific. The human population is just a few dozen, while the cost of fuel has limited fishing in recent years to a mere eight licensed vessels. The isolation has kept these islands undisturbed for about 14 million seabirds.

Spinner dolphins frolic in lagoons alongside endangered monk seals, while similarly threatened green turtles nest on remote beaches. In total, the islands and the surrounding waters are home to 7,000 species — a quarter of which are found nowhere else. All are part of the state of Hawaii, except for Midway Atoll, the site of the Second World War battle, which is a US territory.

Mr Bush’s own inspiration is said to have been sourced in a private White House screening of a 65-minute nature documentary in April where the perils facing the archipelago’s fragile marine ecosystem were laid bare.

The film fired the presidential imagination, according to those in attendance. Mr Bush leapt up from his seat after the screening to congratulate film-maker Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of the late underwater explorer Jacques.

“He was enthusiastic,” M Cousteau said. “The show had a major impact on him, the way my father’s shows had on so many people. I think he really made a discovery — a connection between the quality of our lives and the oceans.”

However, John Hocevar, the ocean specialist for Greenpeace, pointed out that yesterday’s designation was an “easy first step” for the President. “The marine reserve has broad-based support and very little opposition.”

Protection of the islands has received more than 50,000 letters of support over the past years.

“What we would like now is for Bush to show some leadership and adopt some of the measures proposed by his own ocean conservation commission,” Mr Hocevar said. These should include ensuring that all decisions on ocean life took into account the consequences across the food chain, loosening what he called the tight grip of the fishing industry on marine policy and creating more nature conservancy sanctuaries elsewhere along the US coastline.

“President Bush has been a disaster for the environment ever since his inauguration. While this is a great first step, he has a long way to go before he will be known as a friend of the environment.”

Elliott Norse, president of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute, struck a more positive note, saying: “This is the best thing that President Bush has done for the environment since he took office. Having discussed this with him, I know that the President is personally committed to this.”

Mr Norse was one of the 50 guests who witnessed Mr Bush’s excitement after the screening of M Cousteau’s Voyage to Kure in the White House. The President and the First Lady, Laura Bush, marvelled at the beauty of photographs of the islands that appeared in National Geographic magazine, an aide said.

Encompassing nearly 140,000 square miles, the area protected is far bigger than Britain’s 84,000 square miles, and also surpasses Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

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