Roping off the oceans — VOICES for REASON

It’s bad enough that almost 40% of America’s land mass is owned or managed by government. That means private companies must plead on bended knee for permission to extract oil and minerals, or to develop land for profit. Result: a lower standard of living than we have a right to create for ourselves.

Now that same anti-development regime is seeping into the world’s oceans.

Just before leaving office, a stroke of President Bush’s pen created undersea conservation areas covering an area bigger than the state of California. They’re located in three areas of the South Pacific–near the Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and another chain of remote islands.

“The president has given the world a Texas-sized gift,” said Diane Regas, manager of the ocean programme at the Environmental Defence Fund.

But the marine reserves were as much a gift from Laura Bush, who was credited with heading off determined opposition from the vice-president, Dick Cheney, as well as business leaders in the Mariana Islands who had lobbied on behalf of fishing and energy exploration.

Economic prosperity depends on extracting raw materials for processing, yet the legally accessible globe keeps shrinking. When will we realize that government’s job is to protect private property, not to outlaw it? There are many difficult issues presented by the task of implementing private property rights in ocean waters and on the ocean floor. Our political leaders need to understand that their task is to look for the answers, instead of forbidding private property as a matter of policy.