Coast residents finally met the controversial Schwarzenegger administration organization breaking new ground in both environmental privatization and ocean protection.
The North Coast Blue Ribbon Task Force updated locals on the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative (MLPAI) process for three hours Monday morning, then listened to short speeches all afternoon.
On Tuesday, the task force got to see two of the awe-inspiring natural features of the Mendocino Coast — the rain and the ocean.
Scheduled stops on a rain-soaked field trip for the eight-member task force and staff included the Westport Market and Point Cabrillo Lightstation, the Albion River Campground, Fort Bragg”s Town Hall for a public chat with city officials and lunch at Mendocino Cafe.
The task force”s part in the MLPAI is to make final recommendations on areas of the ocean in which to restrict fishing from suggestions from the North Coast Regional Stakeholders Group, which has no voting power.
Most of the 33 members of the stakeholders group were on hand for the meeting, which drew more than 100 people to C.V. Starr Community Center in Fort Bragg on Monday.
The Blue Ribbon Task Force has helped create marine protected areas as mandated by a 1999 state law, something California failed twice to do. They are able to do so because they have moved rapidly. And, as a private entity, they are able to move more nimbly through the deliberative process.
On Monday the task force was challenged by some for helping MLPAI cut through the “red tape” a little too quickly. Some critics say the process will set a dangerous precedent for private entities to run environmental policy.
Priscilla Hunter, representing the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, told the task force that Native Americans cannot have their rights to use the ocean for subsistence fishing and gathering taken away by a privatized process.
“[These are] federally protected aboriginal rights that have never been given up, … which state and local governments cannot violate,” said Hunter.
“[Federal practice] recognizes the right to use these areas for ceremonial and religious purposes … Indian tribes are not generally limited in the way these rights are exercised.”
Another less ominous but persistent challenge to MLPAI has been by local seaweed gatherers, who are frustrated the process doesn”t really distinguish between sustainable, hand harvesting and the automated harvesting in Southern California.
The “seaweed revolution” led by John Lewallen of Philo helped create local opposition to the MLPAI process which has been greater than in other regions and has resulted in some changes, such as appointments to the Blue Ribbon Task Force of people with local ties. On Monday, Lewallen and others organized a protest, carrying signs asserting local rights.
Seven small-scale seaweed harvesters share the coast, splitting up areas to prevent overlap and overharvesting. Larry Knowles, owner of Rising Tide Sea Vegetables in Fort Bragg, an stakeholders group member, told the task force about the culture of cooperation that has existed locally for decades.
He said the harvesters combine to collect about 30,000 pounds of seaweed by hand, compared to Southern California, where a single company often harvests as much as a half million pounds with automated equipment.
Gabriel Moroni asked for greater support for game wardens, reminding the task force that closing a large area only excludes law-abiding people. Criminals, such as abalone poachers from the Bay Area and Sacramento who fill local court calendars, would be thrilled by closures under the current circumstances, Moroni said.
Bill Lemos, a local teacher who serves on the stakeholders group for the Natural Resources Defense Council, volunteers with the new abalone watch group which helps wardens spot poachers. He said those kinds of community efforts are needed as part of a process with environmental benefits.
Tom Trumper, a leader in the local urchin industry, sent a film about problems than can be created by closing areas off. The film showed “urchin barrens” where the creatures eliminated kelp and competing abalone. Scientists consistently say that an environment changed by man cannot simply be allowed to go “back to nature.” The MLPAI process includes several million dollars in study funds to monitor such situations.
Commercial fisherman Jim Bassler, newly appointed to the stakeholders group, said the current process could be more disruptive than helpful to fishery management.
“I supported the marine reserve idea and thought it was going to be a complement to the marine life management act. It seems like sizing and spacing guidelines have made it more disruptive to fisheries,” Bassler said.
Fishermen say using closures rather than management could create problems such as overfishing outside the closed areas, due to increased pressure caused by the closure.
An idea very popular with the crowd was Judy Vidaver”s suggestion to turn the entire coast into a marine conservation area and list all the acceptable and banned uses. Marine conservation areas, along with marine parks and marine reserves, are the three types of marine life protected areas the process is creating.
“A major criticism of the MLPA is that it restricts only fishing and does not address other impacts to marine resources such as water pollution, development and ocean industrialization,” Vidaver said.
She is chair of the Ocean Protection Coalition, a local group that has been instrumental in battling oil drilling and other ocean development.
The MLPAI has yet to make an effort to target any of the many emerging new uses of the ocean, so far aiming only at fishing. MLPAI staff members have said the original law was concerned with closing areas to fishing. But the MLPAI staff has created many new rules and restrictions for fishing along the way, just none that infringe on industries other than fishing.
Cathy Reheis-Boyd, California”s top oil lobbyist was among the Blue Ribbon Task Force members who came to Fort Bragg and has led the process in other areas. No explanation has ever been given as to why the oil industry needed to be represented so prominently in an ocean-protection process when new oil drilling is banned for now in California state waters.
Vidaver reminded the task force that the Obama administration is considering new oil drilling, wind energy development, fish farms and other proposals in federal waters.
“My proposal is this,” Vidaver said. “Include prohibitions of all potential industrialization of the ocean in the language of the individual MLPAs. Plus create a state marine conservation area (SMCA) covering all other areas not included in the final North Coast array. This blanketing” SMCA would specifically list all current uses as allowed and specifically prohibit all other uses that could harm the marine ecosystem.”
Most of the crowd stood to support the idea when Vidaver asked for that.
Many of the speakers were flummoxed by the two-minute time limit set by the task force in order to get through a list of 30 people who signed up to speak in the three hours allotted.
The speaker new to the local debate was Native American leader Hunter. Hunter is a key Native figure, having led Indians to Chiapas, Mexico, to meet with a rebel Mayan leader, marched with Jesse Jackson, and played a key role in negotiating gaming compacts. She has also been controversial, and was ousted from a previous leadership post after a tax scandal broke.
The Blue Ribbon Task Force will meet in Crescent City in May and be back in Fort Bragg on July 21-22. The Regional Stakeholders Group will hold a work session on April 20-21 in Fort Bragg.
