ESPN Freshwater

President George W. Bush's decision to declare Rose Atoll, the Mariana Trench and the Pacific Remote Island Area as marine national monuments is getting mixed reviews from the fishing and environmental communities.

This decision will lead to a protected marine area that covers 195,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean, making it the largest marine conservation effort in history.

The controversy starts with the issue of recreational fishing within the monuments. The American Sportfishing Association said the proclamation effectively prohibits recreational fishing out to 50 nautical miles of the monuments for an undetermined period of time, which didn't sit well with ASA President and CEO Mike Nussman.

"We in the sportfishing community have significant issues with any process where the outcome prohibits people from accessing public resources, particularly when there is no open, transparent process to do so," Nussman said.

The Associated Press reported that recreational fishing, tourism and scientific research with a federal permit could still occur inside the three areas.

The idea of the act was to preserve what James Connaughton, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, described to the AP as two of "the last pristine areas in the marine environment on Earth."

Among the animals and structures that call these areas home are the giant land crab, a bird that incubates its eggs in the heat of underwater volcanoes to a sulfur pool, a sunken island ringed by pink-colored coral and many different species of sharks and other predators.

In 2006, the President first used the Antiquities Act to create the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument. The 1906 Antiquities Act historically has been used to set aside lands under a federal designation for historical or cultural significance, such as some of the areas within the National Park Service. The Hawaiian Islands monument encompasses 140,000 square miles in which, according to the ASA, all recreational fishing, even catch-and-release, is banned.

Nussman said this latest act took less than 60 days to complete, which is part of the reason he takes issue with it.

"There was no proposal or scientific information available for public review and comment," he said.

Congressional Sportsmen Foundation President Jeff Crane agreed with Nussman, saying that banning recreational fishing without "any scientific evidence to support the restriction" is a poor precedent to set. He goes one step further, claiming that this decision goes against Bush's executive order 13474 that was supposed to protect recreational fishing in public areas.

Executive Order 13474 states that "recreational fishing shall be managed as a sustainable activity in national wildlife refuges, national parks, national monuments, national marine sanctuaries, marine protected areas, or any other relevant conservation or management areas or activities under any federal authority, consistent with applicable law."

"This presumes that recreational fishing is harmful to these areas when there is no scientific evidence to that affect," Crane said.

But some environmentalists support Bush's move. The Washington Post cited both Joshua S. Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group, and Vikki Spruill, president and chief executive of the Ocean Conservancy, as supporters of Bush's latest move, saying that environmentalism in the ocean could be Bush's legacy.

"It has taken 137 years, since the creation of America's first national park in Yellowstone in 1872, to recognize that unique areas of the world's oceans deserve the same kind of protection as we have afforded similar places on land," Reichert told the Post. "And none too soon."

Information from The Associated Press, the Washington Post and the Outdoor Wire was used in this story.