Areas around three uninhabited Pacific island chains are being set aside as National Monuments by President George W. Bush to protect them from oil and gas extraction and commercial fishing. This is going be the largest marine conservation effort in history, and only second time Bush has used the law to protect marine resources. Two years ago, the president turned a section of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands into a national monument.

The three areas, which total some 195,274 square miles, include the Mariana Trench, the Northern Mariana Islands, Rose Atoll in American Samoa and seven islands dotted along the equator in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. All will be protected under the 1906 Antiquities Act. The law allows the government to immediately phase out commercial fishing and other exploitative uses.

Environmentalists are saying that the move is an attempt to boost the environmental record of Bush, who has been criticized for not doing enough environmental good deeds during his lackluster Presidency. In fact, he famously lifted a moratorium on oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, which has been called a grave disaster by most environmental groups.