Elias Hernandez/The Washington Post)

WASHINGTON – The president took a break from golfing on Thursday and visited the National Zoo where he signed an executive order on protecting water wildlife, touting the importance of the animals’ natural habitats.

“We’re working hard to conserve the precious wildlife on which our economy depends and I’m proud to be able to sign this executive order with a few of my friends and golf buddies who are conservation partners here at the zoo,” Obama told an enthusiastic crowd during a lunch break.

The president added that conservation is a bipartisan issue, saying that while “political leaders may disagree” on the importance of conservation, the fact is that all Americans “believe in nature,” and the president believes in nature.

The order is a response to an order that Obama signed in June that designated 10 national monuments. Those monuments encompassed nearly 16 million acres of American land in the West, including some of the most significant fossil fuel-rich land in Texas. The president, however, had made a different decision in June and protected some private land in the Upper Big Bend region of the western United States, which is also known as the “dinosaur park.”

Obama, meanwhile, signed an executive order Thursday allowing the construction of seven more oil and natural gas storage projects on federal lands in the Western United States. The actions came as Congress and Obama negotiate new, larger portions of the Dakota Access pipeline, an issue with a high political stakes during the November election.

(Deirdra O’Regan/The Washington Post)

Among the other actions on the president’s golf list:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

The White House said the list will continue to grow as Obama works to develop a full-blown environmental legacy after the finalization of the 2016 climate change agreement he signed in Paris earlier this month.