Kiribati Island Creates World's Largest Marine Protected Area

In June 2006, President Bush created "the world's largest marine protected area — a group of remote Hawaiian islands that cover 84 million acres and are home to 7,000 species of birds, fish and marine mammals, at least a quarter of which are unique to Hawaii."

Twenty months later, the small Pacific Island nation of Kiribati has taken the crown from the U.S.

The small Pacific Island nation of Kiribati has become a global conservation leader by establishing the world's largest marine protected area – a California-sized ocean wilderness of pristine coral reefs and rich fish populations threatened by over-fishing and climate change.

The Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) conserves one of the Earth's last intact oceanic coral archipelago ecosystems, consisting of eight coral atolls and two submerged reef systems in a nearly uninhabited region of abundant marine and bird life. The 410,500-square-kilometer (158,453-square-mile) protected area also includes underwater mountains and other deep-sea habitat.

This is a fun little game, isn't it? Let's see who has the world's largest marine protected area! Let's hope countries around the world begin fighting for the title.