§410qq Findings and purpose

Summary

Protect and save the tropical forest, reefs, and archaeological and cultural sites of American Samoa. The law must keep the forest’s balance, protect the flying foxes and their habitat, and let visitors enjoy these special places as long as the resources stay safe. Congress found tropical forests are shrinking worldwide. They hold 50 percent of the world’s plants and animals, help science, medicine, and farming, and make much of the earth’s oxygen. Losing them causes extinctions, less biodiversity, fewer new medicines and crops, and more carbon dioxide that changes the climate. American Samoa’s forest is one of the last undisturbed paleotropical forests, is the largest such forest under U.S. control, hosts one of the last Pacific flying fox populations that pollinate many plants, contains important archaeological evidence, and its people want part protected as a national park.