maverita’s Recent Comments

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  Credit where Suspicion is Deserved

  While I am always willing to appreciate any move toward conservation, I think that Bush's designation of this marine area as a national monument was, as all his gifts to the American people, a double-edged sword.  National Monument status does not really offer much protection.  Please note the wikpedia definition of a National Monument as designated by US government: is a protected area of the United States that is similar to a national park (specifically a U.S. National Park) except that the President of the United States can quickly declare an area of the United States to be a national monument without Congressional approval. There are also fewer protections offered to wildlife and to the geographic features in a national monument compared to the protection (and funding) that a national park receives.
  Another difference between a national monument and national park is the amount of diversity in what is being protected; national monuments aim to preserve at least one unique resource but do not have the amount of diversity of a national park (which are supposed to protect a host of unique features). However areas within and extending beyond, national parks, monuments or even national forests can be part of wilderness areas, which have an even greater degree of protection than a national park would alone, although wilderness areas managed by the USDA Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management oftentimes allow hunting.

  This national monument status has been challenged in the past when oil reserves, mineral or other natural resources have caught the eye of the greedy.  Or even worse, when budgets get cut, such areas are often exploited to generate cash from forestry or other resource usage....

  No, like every other move he has made*, this one has long been calculated to do just what you are allowing it to do, put a patina of environmentalism on a man who does not deserve it.  It would have been far more "evironmental" to get behind a proper marine sanctuary program and designation which would have truly provided ecological protection....  

  *remember how he used his first nomination of Harriet Myers to replace Sandra Day O'Connor in a manner that insured that she would not be seriously considered, so that another woman would not be placed on the supreme court, but in a manner that effectively neutralized feminist criticism.  On Credit where credit is due posted 3 years, 5 months ago 6 Responses