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Congress hearing includes funding for Rota National Park study
President Barrack Obama has included federal funding for a feasibility study on the declaration of a national park on Rota in the government’s budget for fiscal year 2016.
In an update, Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP) said the funding was discussed on Thursday during the House Natural Resources Committee oversight hearing on President Obama’s fiscal year 2016 budget proposal for the Department of the Interior.
The President included funding for the Rota National Park study, which was only just approved last December, in the National Defense Authorization Act, Sablan said.
According to him, the study will provide opportunity for public input and consider the addition of areas on Rota, already determined to be of national significance to the National Park System.
“This could have an enormously positive effect on Rota’s economy and boost tourism throughout the Mariana Islands,” Sablan said.
The President’s fiscal year 2016 budget also includes funding for other programs of benefit to the Northern Marianas, including operation and maintenance of the American Memorial Park, historic preservation, land and water Conservation, and the state wildlife programs.
In December, the U.S. National Defense Authorization Act included authorization of a study on the suitability and feasibility of establishing a national park on Rota.
The National Park Service said “the southernmost island of the CNMI preserves striking examples of the 3,000-year-old Chamorro culture surrounded by the best remaining expanse of this island chain’s native limestone forest.”
The Mochon Latte Village, the Chugai Pictograph Cave, the Taga Latte Stone Quarry, and the Alaguan Bay Ancient Village prehistoric sites include architectural features unique to the ancient Chamorro culture and represent outstanding examples of the island’s cultural resource, the agency said.
