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巴尔米拉环礁（Palmyra Atoll）是一座古老的火山的产物。图为环礁上的一个泻湖。

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Soldierfish glide through coral at Baker Island, one of the Pacific Remote Islands. Some corals in the islands are up to 5,000 years old.

Washington — A two-day international conference focused on problems threatening the global marine environment ended June 17 with new U.S. goals to increase the legal protections extended to ocean areas. Pacific Ocean island states also made commitments for similar actions in their territorial waters.

President Obama announced that he wants to expand legal protections already in place at the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, a grouping of atolls and islands, which are home to diverse forms of seabirds, coral reefs and the many ocean species they support.

Former President George W. Bush first bestowed protected status on the uninhabited islands in 2009, and they are part of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Obama now aims to extend the protected status of the waters surrounding the islands beyond the 12-nautical-mile (22.2-kilometer) refuge boundary.

Kiribati President Anote Tong was one of several heads of state who attended Our Ocean 2014, along with foreign ministers, environmentalists, scientists and business people from almost 90 nations. He also stepped up his government’s commitment to marine conservation, announcing that Kiribati will impose a ban on commercial fishing in more than 400,000 square kilometers of its territorial waters, effective January 2015.

These waters surrounding the Pacific Island atoll state already have some protections in place, but the commercial fishing ban will go further to protect what experts describe as a rare environment.

With these and other commitments made during the conference, Secretary of State John Kerry said, “We’re potentially on the verge of protecting more than 3 million square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean.”

National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala, who has been on expeditions to Kiribati and the Pacific Remote Islands, was among the scientists who spoke to the assembly. “Diving in these places is like going back in time to an ocean with crystal clear waters and large predators and healthy corals,” he said.

South Pacific states are serious about their role as stewards of the ocean, Tong said, citing the coordinated effort among more than 20 island states to impose conservation policies in their territorial waters to create the Pacific Oceanscape protected zone.

In doing so, Tong said, the nations have made an economic sacrifice in the loss of energy development royalties, for example. But when the protected waters harbor an undersea environment that attracts tourism and research, Tong said, “it makes good financial sense to do so.”

Tropical coral reefs and their diverse, colorful marine life forms are especially vulnerable to the problems humans have dumped into the ocean, like pollution, debris and acidification. That’s why the Obama administration wants to heighten the protections, but aims to survey the interests of a range of interested parties before doing so. A White House fact sheet released with the announcement said that “fishermen, scientists, conservation experts, elected officials, and other stakeholders” will all have an opportunity to weigh in on the proposed expansion of the Pacific Remote Island Marine National Monument.

Government, private organizations and foundations made a total of almost $1.5 billion in pledges to support marine conservation efforts, Kerry said. But the conference also produced the framework of a plan about practices, methods and success stories of improving the marine environment and reversing damage. Kerry hopes those will become “a unified global ocean policy” that will ultimately be endorsed by all nations.

For more information, see the Our Ocean resources page.