Last week”s California Fish and Game Commission meeting was supposed to be graduation day for the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative”s efforts to restrict or ban fishing in new ocean areas off Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte County.
Instead, the entire process is stuck in a neverland between Native American treaties and state law.
Native Americans claim federal treaties give them rights in perpetuity. With no provision in the state constitution to treat one user group differently than another, the commission can”t “give” them special rights to gather in newly restricted areas. Furthermore, while some tribes have offered information about gathering areas they use, others have said they do not recognize the legality of the process, making it difficult to create maps that don”t ban Indians from traditional gathering areas.
The meeting ended without the commission taking any action or even giving clear direction as to where the process is going next. Commissioners were unable even to set a timetable on subsequent hearings, much less come up with a date when the new “ocean parks” would become reality.
After the MLPAI announced new closed areas would be created with or without public input, locals from the three counties held dozens of meetings in 2009 and 2010. Despite controversies, environmentalists, fishermen and community leaders came together in the fall to agree on a unified array or map of new ocean parks stretching across Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties.
The North Coast came at the end of fast-paced statewide process to adopt fishing restricted areas from Mexico to Canada, a push by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger administration”s efforts to finally meet the mandate of the Marine Life Protection Act, which passed the California Legislature in 1999.
The local “unified array proposal” has been eclipsed by the bigger question of whether the state has the right to close areas of the ocean used by Native American speakers made it clear they won”t be moved.
Valerie Stanley of the Noyo River Indian Community told commissioners she wasn”t in favor of any of the MLPA proposals, but would like to see “option zero which represents no change and no new closed areas.
“I realize that probably isn”t going to happen,” she said.
Stanley said Indians can”t simply “move to the next rock” like a casual fisherman might if their area is closed, as they are tied to ancestral lands. During public comment on Tuesday, many tribal members and leaders generally agreed that the unified proposal was acceptable, without supporting it.
More than 200 locals and Native American protestors marched on the July 21 BRTF meeting in Fort Bragg (and other meetings), peacefully seizing control of the meeting, then gave speeches about Indian rights while the BRTF members listened.
The MLPAI was conceived in Southern California, where Indian tribes no longer maintain regular use of the ocean. In this region, the MLPAI did appoint a large number of Native Americans to advisory panels and even one to its managing entity, the Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF).
That BRTF member, Roberta Cordero, said many of the problems could have been avoided if the MLPAI had consulted with natives beforehand.
“Don”t let this happen again,” Cordero said.
As a way of resolving the Native American issue, the BRTF included “an enhanced alternative” in which the areas proposed for restriction or closure would all be open along the shoreline in a “ribbon” offshore out to three miles, fishing uses would be banned, rather than simply restricted.
This “administrative” solution didn”t satisfy the native concerns, prompting the commission to ask the Department and Fish and Game to study further administrative solutions. Legislative solutions will also be considered.
The recommendations of the majority of 35 stakeholders from the three counties in the unified array would close about 13 percent of the Coast from Point Arena to the Oregon border.
New “ocean parks” would avoid most of the areas off Albion and Noyo harbors and would be found in the area from Ten Mile Beach to the Western tip of Cape Mendocino, mostly on the Lost Coast.
Beyond the puzzle presented by Native American rights, many other questions remain unanswered. The unified array was challenged by Department of Fish and Game staff as not meeting science guidelines, nor providing adequate ocean protection.
Commissioner Michael Sutton who was one of the strongest critics of the unified array”s marine protection weakness, made a joke about the lack of advanced planning for the Native issue.
“I just got back from British Columbia. It turns out, they have Native people too,” he said.
Cindy Gustafson, who chaired the BRTF in the North Coast, said the difficult process simply must be resolved by the government, not the privatized MLPAI.
“We did our absolutely best job with the tools we had to work with. I do see the dilemma of meeting the science guidelines and balancing what the community wanted,” Gustafson said.
“I hate to punt…but I do need to punt this to the state.”
Commercial fishing representative Jim Bassler said locals were unable to break out of the conundrum presented by Native American claims. He said if commissioners went back and tried to redraw the lines, they would find themselves in the same mess.
“You can ignore tribal rights and let them take you to court. Or you can take this weak proposal temporarily until they correct it further down the line…that is your choice as I see it,” said Bassler.
Seaweed gatherer Larry Knowles, who was among those to create the unified array, said it represents the best chance for the commission to create any MPAs in the North Coast.
“Given the overwhelming support for Option Zero, I think the Unified Array is the only proposal that will achieve widespread community support,” Knowles said
Sen. Noreen Evans, said the proposal was the result of a wide variety of people coming together to make difficult decisions. Evans said their support would be critical in moving forward, especially in a time when the state has few resources to implement and enforce marine protected areas. “I think you have an easy decision to make,” Evans said.
A meeting has been set for next week related to the MLPAI process.
Assemblyman Wes Chesbro, chair of the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture, will convene the 38th Annual Fisheries Forum to be held at the Capitol, Room 4202, on Feb. 16 at 10 a.m.
The agenda will include many speakers providing testimony on Fisheries and Aquaculture issues throughout California.
Reports from the Eureka-Times Standard, KZYX and Jeanine Pfeiffer contributed to this report.
Email Frank Hartzell at frankhartzell@gmail.com.
