Former First Lady Laura Bush, speaking Wednesday at a scientific summit in Texas, lauded the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary as critical protector of Gulf of Mexico marine resources.</p><p>"Whether you live in Key West, Mobile, Biloxi, New Orleans, Galveston, Corpus Christi or somewhere in between, every community along the Gulf depends on a healthy and sustainable ecosystem for their future existence and prosperity," said Bush, a Texas native.</p><p>The three-day summit, hosted by Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, drew "a diversity of public and private actors working on conservation and recovery in the Gulf," according to program information.</p><p>The Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010 "brought new urgency" to the annual Gulf of Mexico Summit, organizers said.</p><p>Bush's keynote speech at the closing event focused on protecting the Gulf of Mexico as a critical economic and environmental resource.</p><p>"From our experience with national marine monuments in the Pacific and with marine sanctuaries and national wildlife refuges and parks, we know that conservation and economic development are not mutually exclusive," Bush said. </p><p>"From the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the deep waters off Texas to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and the Florida Everglades National Park, marine sanctuaries and parks attract visitors and give Gulf residents a great sense of pride in where they live."</p><p>"Instead of impeding commercial activity, they demonstrate that economic growth can occur in ways that don't compromise our most important and treasured ecological areas," she said.</p><p>The former First Lady supported the concept of a "a national marine monument or sanctuary along what some call the 'Islands of the Stream,' - a string of underwater mountains run along the outer Gulf shelf."</p><p>"A number of them rise to peaks near the surface of the water, creating a series of coral reef communities which track closely with the flow of the Gulf Stream," she said.</p><p>The Flower Garden Banks sanctuary was created to protect one of these Gulf areas, but others need additional protection, Bush said. </p><p>"These 'Islands of the Stream' ring the Gulf, creating what I like to envision as a coral necklace. From the Flower Gardens, the underwater mountain chain runs east to the Florida Keys Sanctuary and up along the southeast coast of the United States," she said. "These areas represent just a fraction of 1 percent of the continental shelf in the Gulf."</p><p>Former President George W. Bush and his wife will join family members spending most of January along the Florida gulf coast, Laura Bush said.