[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 47 (Monday, November 25, 1996)]
[Pages 2423-2425]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the International Coral Reef Initiative in Port Douglas, 
Australia

November 22, 1996

    Thank you very much. Premier and Mrs. Borbidge, Mayor Berwick, 
Minister Hill and Mrs. Hill, members of the Great Barrier Reef Marine 
Park Authority, and to Minister Moore and Mrs. Moore, especially to 
Alicia Stevens for reminding us what this is all about today.
    Hillary and I and our party have had a wonderful visit to Australia. 
We understand now why it is called the Lucky Country. But we believe 
that there is more than luck involved here. Today we celebrate the 
commitment of a people of this country, of the United States, and people 
all over the world to the proposition that we must preserve the natural 
resources that God has given us. We are here near the biggest, best 
managed protected marine and coastal area in the world for a clear 
reason: Australia has made a national commitment to be good stewards of 
the land with which God blessed you.
    I am especially pleased today, as has already been said, that the 
Government of Australia is honoring the United States by naming a 
section of the Great Barrier Reef after Rachel Carson. Rachel Carson was 
the great American environmentalist; she was a marine biologist. Vice 
President Gore wrote about Rachel Carson: She brought us back to a 
fundamental idea lost to an amazing degree in modern civilization, the 
interconnection of human beings and the natural environment. That 
interconnection clearly imposes upon all of us a shared responsibility. 
To preserve

[[Page 2424]]

a future for our children and grandchildren, we must care for our shared 
environment. It is a practical and a moral imperative.
    We are citizens not only of individual nations but of this small and 
fragile planet. We know that pollution has contempt for borders, that 
what comes out of a smokestack in one nation can wind up on the shores 
of another an ocean away. We know, too, that recovery and preservation 
also benefits people beyond the borders of the nation in which it 
occurs. We know

that protecting the environment can affect not only our health and our 
quality of life, it can even affect the peace. In too many places, 
including those about which we read too often now on the troubled continent 
of Africa, abuses like deforestation breed scarcity, and scarcity 
aggravates the turmoil which exists all over the world.

    I am very proud of the work our two nations have done to preserve 
our natural heritage. Just as we have been allies for peace and freedom, 
we must be allies in the 21st century to protect the Earth's 
environment. Our work together on the International Coral Reef 
Initiative is a shining example of what we can achieve. Founded in 1994 
by Australia, the United States, and six other governments, this 
initiative helps nations and regions to conserve, manage, and monitor 
coral reefs.
    Pollution, overfishing, and overuse have put many of our unique 
reefs at risk. Their disappearance would destroy the habitat of 
countless species. It would unravel the web of marine life that holds 
the potential for new chemicals, new medicines, unlocking new mysteries. 
It would have a devastating effect on the coastal communities from 
Cairns to Key West, Florida, communities whose livelihood depends upon 
the reefs.
    Steadily we are making progress. In this part of the world the ICRI 
has played a crucial role in slowing the use of cyanide to harvest coral 
reef fish. Around the world, more than 75 nations and scores of 
organizations have participated in ICRI programs. Today, with your 
knowledge and leadership, we are seeing to it that the world's reefs 
make it into the next century safe and secure. And I thank you for that.
    Let me say that our effort to save the world's reefs is a model for 
the work that we can do together in other environment areas, and there 
is a lot of work to do. Deforestation is claiming an area of South Korea 
every year. Let us, together with the United Nations, develop a strategy 
for the sustainable management of all our forests.
    Toxic chemicals and pesticides banned here and in the United States 
can still find their way into our lives, endangering our land, our 
water, and our children. Rachel Carson, whom we honor here today, helped 
alert us in the United States to these dangers. Let us now forge a 
global agreement to stop these toxic substances from being released into 
the world around us.
    Today, thanks to the Montreal Protocol, we are slowing the 
production and the consumption of chlorofluorocarbons, the chemicals 
that have been eating a hole in the Earth's ozone layer. We're on our 
way to closing the ozone hole that threatens Antarctica and Australia. 
Now we must see to it that this landmark treaty is enforced from one 
corner

of the Earth to the other. We need no more new holes in the ozone.

    Finally, we must work to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions. 
These gases released by cars and power plants and burning forests affect 
our health and our climate. They are literally warming our planet. If 
they continue unabated, the consequences will be nothing short of 
devastating for the children here in this audience and their children.
    New weather patterns, lost species, the spread of infectious 
diseases, damaged economies, rising sea levels: if present trends 
continue, there is a real risk that sometime in the next century, parts 
of this very park we are here in today could disappear, submerged by a 
rising ocean. That is why today, from this remarkable place, I call upon 
the community of nations to agree to legally binding commitments to 
fight climate change.
    We must stand together against the threat of global warming. A 
greenhouse may be a good place to raise plants; it is no place to 
nurture our children. And we can avoid dangerous global warming if we 
begin today and if we begin together.

[[Page 2425]]

    If we meet all these challenges, we can make 1997 a milestone year 
in protecting the global environment. We can do it in a way that 
encourages sustainable development. One thing we've learned in recent 
years is that protecting the environment and promoting human progress 
are not incompatible goals; they go hand in hand. I am very pleased that 
the United Nations General Assembly will have a special session in New 
York next year to review our progress in advancing sustainable 
development since the Earth summit in Rio.
    An Australian folk tale has it that in the beginning the sky was so 
close to the Earth that it blocked out all the light. Everyone was 
forced to crawl in the darkness, collecting with their hands whatever 
they could find to eat. But the birds of that land decided that if they 
worked together they could raise the sky and make more room to move 
about. Slowly, with long sticks, they lifted the sky. The darkness 
passed, and everyone stood upright.
    If we work together as those birds did, we can preserve our 
environment for our children, for their children, for generations 
beyond. Let us lift our sights and ourselves to that great challenge.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 1:45 p.m. at Port Douglas Park. In his 
remarks, he referred to Queensland Premier Robert Borbidge and his wife, 
Jennifer; Mayor Mike Berwick of Port Douglas; Senator Robert Hill, 
Minister for the Environment, and his wife, Diana; John Moore, Minister 
for Industry, Science, and Tourism, and his wife, Jacqueline; and Alicia 
Stevens, Port Douglas student who spoke before the President. A tape was 
not available for verification of the content of these remarks.