The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 4-1 to join numerous other governments, including the Fort Bragg City Council, in supporting the Regional Stakeholders Groups” single proposed map of new marine protected areas under the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative.
The stakeholders” plan is for most new marine protected areas to be concentrated between Cape Mendocino and Ten Mile Beach, but would include new protections that start at the Oregon border and extend to the Navarro River estuary.
The Regional Stakeholders, representing Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties, came together to agree on a single proposal for areas to limit or prohibit fishing, the first time that had happened in the MLPAI process, which is complete or ongoing in the rest of the California Coast.
In other regions, competing proposals were put forward. Jim Martin, MLPAI outreach coordinator and local sportfishing activist, explained that allowed the Blue Ribbon Task Force to “cherry pick” what it liked and create a single proposal.
Now, local governments and agencies are asking that the locally-produced single proposal be rubber-stamped into law by the task force and Department of Fish and Game.
The dissenting vote came from Fifth District Supervisor David Colfax, who made an impassioned speech against giving away any more coastal resources to strong-arming from outside forces.
He compared the consensus for the locally produced arrays to community consensus in the past that resulted in ruination of the natural resources.
“We are saying this is the best we can get, we don”t want to be disagreeable, so let”s go along to get along. I”m against that,” Colfax said.
“I think it”s junk science, I think it”s junk politics, I think it”s a tribute to the ability to buy and sell a community …. here we go again.”
