Compilation of Weekly Presidential Documents - January 22, 2001 - Proclamation 7399--establishment of the Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument

Monday, January 22, 2001

 

Volume 37, Issue 3; ISSN: 0511-4187

 

Proclamation 7399--establishment of the Virgin Islands Coral Reef National

Monument

William J Clinton

 

 

� January 17, 2001

 

 

� By the President of the United States ofAmerica

 

 

� A Proclamation

 

 

� The Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument, in the submerged

lands off the island of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands,

contains all the elements of a Caribbean tropical marine ecosystem.

This designation furthers the protection of the scientific objects

included in the Virgin Islands National Park, created in 1956 and

expanded in 1962. The biological communities of the monument live in

a fragile, interdependent relationship and include habitats

essential for sustaining and enhancing the tropical marine

ecosystem: mangroves, sea grass beds, coral reefs, octocoral

hardbottom, sand communities, shallow mud and fine sediment habitat,

and algal plains. The fishery habitats, deeper coral reefs,

octocoral hardbottom, and algal plains of the monument are all

objects of scientific interest and essential to the long-term

sustenance of the tropical marine ecosystem.

 

 

� The monument is within the Virgin Islands, which lie at the heart

of the insular Caribbean biome, and is representative of the Lesser

Antillean biogeographic province. The island of St. John rises from

a platform that extends several miles from shore before plunging to

the abyssal depths of the Anegada trough to the south and the Puerto

Rican trench to the north, the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean.

This platform contains a multitude of species that exist in a

delicate balance, interlinked through complex relationships that

have developed over tens of thousands of years.

 

 

� As part of this important ecosystem, the monument contains

biological objects including several threatened and endangered

speties, which forage, breed, nest, rest, or calve in the waters.

Humpback whales, pilot whales, four species of dolphins, brown

pelicans, roseate terns, least terns, and the hawksbill,

leatherback, and green sea turtles all use portions of the monument.

Countless species of reef fish, invertebrates, and plants utilize

these submerged lands during their lives, and over 25 species of sea

birds feed in the waters. Between the nearshore nursery habitats and

the shelf edge spawning sites in the monument are habitats that play

essential roles during specific developmental stages of

reef-associated species, including spawning migrations of many reef

fish species and crustaceans.

 

 

� The submerged monument lands within Hurricane Hole include the most

extensive and well-developed mangrove habitat on St. John. The

Hurricane Hole area is an important nursery area for reef associated

fish and invertebrates, instrumental in maintaining water quality by

filtering and trapping sediment and debris in fresh water runoff

from the fast land, and essential to the overall functioning and

productivity of regional fisheries. Numerous coral reef-associated

species, including the spiny lobster, queen conch, and Nassau

grouper, transform from planktonic larvae to bottom-dwelling

juveniles in the shallow nearshore habitats of Hurricane Hole. As

they mature, they move offshore and take up residence in the deeper

coral patch reefs, octocoral hardbottom, and algal plains of the

submerged monument lands to the south and north of St. John.

 

 

� The monument lands south of St. John are predominantly deep algal

plains with scattered areas of raised hard bottom. The algal plains

include communities of mostly red and calcareous algae with canopies

as much as half a meter high. The raised hard bottom is sparsely

colonized with corals, sponges, gorgonians, and other invertebrates,

thus providing shelter for lobster, groupers, and snappers as well

as spawning sites for some reef fish species. These algal plains and

raised hard bottom areas link the shallow water reef, sea grass, and

mangrove communities with the deep water shelf and shelf edge

communities of fish and invertebrates.

 

 

� Section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 431),

authorizes the President, in his discretion, to declare by public

proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric

structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest

that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the

Government of the United States to be national monuments, and to

reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in

all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the

proper care and management of the objects to be protected.

 

 

� Whereas it appears that it would be in the public interest to

reserve such lands as a national monument to be known as the Virgin

Islands Coral Reef National Monument:

 

 

� Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United

States of America, by the authority vested in me by section 2 of the

Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 431), do proclaim that

there are hereby set apart and reserved as the Virgin Islands Coral

Reef National Monument, for the purpose of protecting the objects

identified above, all lands and interests in lands owned or

controlled by the United States within the boundaries of the area

described on the map entitled "Virgin Islands Coral Reef National

Monument" attached to and forming a part of this proclamation. The

Federal land and interests in land reserved consist of approximately

12,708 marine acres, which is the smallest area compatible with the

proper care and management of the objects to be protected.

 

 

� All Federal lands and interests in lands within the boundaries of

this monument are hereby appropriated and withdrawn from all forms

of entry, location, selection, sale, or leasing or other disposition

under the public land laws, including but not limited to withdrawal

from location, entry, and patent under the mining laws, and from

disposition under all laws relating to mineral and geothermal

leasing, other than by exchange that furthers the protective

purposes of the monument. For the purpose of protecting the objects

identified above, the Secretary shall prohibit all boat anchoring,

except for emergency or authorized administrative purposes.

 

 

� For the purposes of protecting the objects identified above, the

Secretary shall prohibit all extractive uses, except that the

Secretary may issue permits for bait fishing at Hurricane Hole and

for blue runner (hard nose) line fishing in the area south of St.

John, to the extent that such fishing is consistent with the

protection of the objects identified in this proclamation.

 

 

� Lands and interests in lands within the monument not owned or

controlled by the United States shall be reserved as a part of the

monument upon acquisition of title or control thereto by the United

States.

 

 

� The Secretary of the Interior shall manage the monument through the

National Park Service, pursuant to applicable legal authorities, to

implement the purposes of this proclamation. The National Park

Service will manage the monument in a manner consistent with

international law.

 

 

� The Secretary of the Interior shall prepare a management plan,

including the management of vessels in the monument, within 3 years,

which addresses any further specific actions necessary to protect

the objects identified in this proclamation.

 

 

� The establishment of this monument is subject to valid existing

rights.

 

 

� Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke any existing

withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation; however, the national

monument shall be the dominant reservation.

 

 

� Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not to

appropriate, injure, destroy, or remove any feature of this monument

and not to locate or settle upon any of the lands thereof.

 

 

� In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth

day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand one, and of the

Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and

twenty-fifth.

 

 

� William J. Clinton

 

 

� [Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., January

19,2001]

 

 

� NOTE: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on

January 22.

 

 

 

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