Go. Linda Lingle and Department of Land and Natural Resources chairwoman Laura Thielen speak with (from left) Jonathan Putnam, National Park Service, and UNESCO evaluators Jerker Tamelander (center) and Dr. Ian Lilley. (Photo courtesy of The Governor's Office)

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Gov. Linda Lingle welcomed officials from the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to Hawaii last week as part of the process to evaluate the nomination of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument as a World Heritage site.

“World Heritage sites belong to people of the world,” Lingle said. “They incorporate universal and significant aspects of natural and cultural heritage, as well as legacy of the past and present for future generations.”

Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument is one of the few remaining places that has limited direct human impact. It is larger than all the country’s national parks combined and home to more than 7,000 marine species, one quarter of which are found only in the monument.

The governor noted while Hawaii is commemorating its 50th anniversary of statehood this year, 2009 also marks another significant milestone: 100 years of conservation of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, now known as the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.

On Feb. 3, 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt issued Executive Order 1019 to establish the Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation, which stretched from Nihoa Island to Kure Atoll.

“President Roosevelt was the first of many presidents to take decisive action to protect this jewel of the Pacific,” the governor said.

Hawaii was proud to contribute to this legacy in 2005, with the establishment of a State Marine Refuge. The refuge sets aside all state waters as limited access, no-take marine protected area. 

With the governor’s signature, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands became the largest marine conservation area in the history of the state. One year later, President Bush designated the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.

The governor expressed her gratitude to the monument’s three co-managing agencies, the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

“We are all working to protect this archipelago for the next 100 years,” she said. “It’s our obligation to protect this legacy and to pass it on to future generations intact.”