As President Bush enters the last few months of his second term, there is a lot of talk about his legacy. And with the White House Conference on North American Wildlife Policy coming up, the President is putting hunting, fishing, and conservation in the spotlight in his remaining time. This weekend, he also decided to protect some of America's most pristine and remote islands from commercial fishing and mineral exploration.

Bush's proposal would conserve parts of the Northern Mariana islands, the Line Islands in the central Pacific and American Samoa, environmentalists who participated in a 40-minute conference call about the plan on Friday told The Associated Press. Making them off limits to fishing and energy development is the most stringent of the possible measures outlined.

The proposal is expected to be made public as soon as Monday, when the White House plans to send a memo to Cabinet members, including the Defense, Interior and Commerce secretaries, and the Council on Environmental Quality. They will evaluate various levels of protection for the three areas and the impacts of establishing marine reserves. The review is expected to take one to two months, the participants said.

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