Economic Potential
The only immediate mining potential is on and immediately offshore of the islands themselves (viz phosphates, sand, gravel, and coral) which would conflict with their protected status per the study. Iron deposits on a few seamounts are also mentioned as an intermediate possibility but no energy resources are identified. The islands have phosphorite and guano resources.
In comparison, the Seward's Folly article, regarding the purchase of Alaska in 1868, has this 1913 reflection from historian Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer regarding what the New York World said on April 1, 1867:
The New York World said that it was a ‘sucked orange.’ It contained nothing of value but furbearing animals, and these had been hunted until they were nearly extinct. Except for the Aleutian Islands and a narrow strip of land extending along the southern coast the country would be not worth taking as a gift…Read more about this topic: Howland And Baker Islands
Famous quotes containing the words economic and/or potential:
“In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up—or else all go down—as one people.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Raising a daughter is an extremely political act in this culture. Mothers have been placed in a no-win situation with their daughters: if they teach their daughters simply how to get along in a world that has been shaped by men and male desires, then they betray their daughters’ potential But, if they do not, they leave their daughters adrift in a hostile world without survival strategies.”
—Elizabeth Debold (20th century)