In like a lion and out like a lamb.  An unlikely green super-hero emerges to protect the fragile seas.

The Bush administration may not be remembered for it’s ground breaking conservation efforts but just before his departure from office, President Bush effectively protected a whopping 195,000 square miles of the central Pacific’s untouched ocean oasis.  With the stroke of a pen, the President set aside an area the size of his home state of Texas as the largest swath of protected ocean on the planet.

And Bush didn’t skimp on the protection either: these marine monuments are granted the highest level of conservation, prohibiting commercial fishing, mining, and drilling of this newly safeguarded underwater Yellowstone.  While the initial proposed ocean and island plot was over 700,000 square miles, Bush’s declaration went above and beyond expectations and is still a huge and important initiative.

Only recently have we come to discover the finite nature of our ocean as a natural resource and it’s efforts like this we hope will endure through our emerging administration.

For a look at the largest marine monument on earth, check out some of these images:

Photo by Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

Slideshow by volcanojw.