The memo sets a preliminary deadline of Sept. 5 for the evaluations, indicating that the administration wants to move fast.
Two other candidates for increased protection -- a stretch of deep-water corals off the coast of the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida and areas especially rich in marine life in the Gulf of Mexico -- were knocked out of consideration because of opposition from the fishing and oil and gas industries.
The proposed monuments in the Pacific are expected to also face resistance from commercial and recreational fishing interests. Gov. Benigno R. Fitial of Saipan, the capital of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, has already written a letter to Bush opposing new protections around the northernmost islands and the adjacent trench.
"We rely on fishing as a source of food and jobs," Fitial wrote Bush in April. "Those who live in the CNMI have no interest in ceding their cultural heritage to the federal government under the auspices of environmental protectionism."
Yet the Saipan Chamber of Commerce has rallied around the idea, saying that designating the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument would bring needed tourism to the financially struggling commonwealth.
U.S. conservationists praised Bush's proposal, but some also expressed concern that it would not go far enough.
"This is an opportunity for President Bush to do something really good that will be looked at as a high point of his administration -- if he does it right," said Elliott Norse, president of the Marine Conservation Biology Institute, which has been lobbying for the protections. "By 'right,' I mean he gives big, broad protections and full protections around these islands and atolls, not postage-stamp protections."
Joshua S. Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group, cautioned that merely designating the areas as sanctuaries would not necessarily protect them from destructive fishing or mining. If Bush actually bans those things, he said, "it would be one of the most significant environmental achievements of any U.S. president."
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ken.weiss@latimes.com
