THINKING BIGGER:

Hawaiian island chain will get national-monument status (Elizabeth Weise, 6/15/06, USA TODAY)

President Bush is expected Thursday to create the world's largest marine sanctuary in a chain of uninhabited islands and atolls 1,200 miles northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands.

White House officials say Bush will elevate the area now known as the Northwestern Hawaiian Island Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve to national-monument status. The designation will immediately afford the region the strongest legal protections, with fishing and commercial operations being phased out over the next five years and visitors primarily limited to scientific researchers.

"It's the ocean equivalent of Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon all rolled into one," says Joshua Reichert, director of the environmental program of the Pew Charitable Trusts in Philadelphia.

The area comprises 140,000 square miles of ocean dotted with dozens of coral reefs and tiny islands; it is a 1,400-mile-long, 100-mile-wide swath of pristine marine habitat larger than all U.S. national parks combined.

The area is considered an ecological jewel. [...]

There are 13 national marine sanctuaries in U.S. waters, and White House officials say this new one will be seven times larger than all of them combined. It is almost 100 years in the making, with U.S. presidents setting it apart with increasing levels of protection.