Staff Writer
Editor”s Note: The July 29 edition will carry an update on the two-day hearing.
A group of six young Yurok Native American men were carrying homemade signs on Main Street, when they spotted the camera and gave thumbs up and smiles as they back slapped and shoved to get in whatever photo was being taken.
Why were so many Native Americans in Fort Bragg Wednesday, July 21?
“When we do something like, this, everybody wants to come along,” said one man from the laughing and joking group as they marched by.
The biggest contingent of Native Americans anyone can remember arriving in Fort Bragg in modern times came to protest before the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force. Ironically, the event hit on the 20th anniversary of one of the biggest protests in Fort Bragg history, as part of “Redwood Summer.”
Most Native Americans on Wednesday wore matching T-shirts that read “MLPA — taking tribal rights away.”
They got a cacophony of honks from locals. Many also displayed homemade signs with messages like “MLPA=Big Oil,” “MLPA — Tribal Genocide” and “First You Take Our Land, Now You Take Our Food.”
Some were Fort Bragg resident natives, some came from places like Round Valley in Mendocino County and as far away as the Trinity Alps. Having ridden hours on busses and in carpools, they were clearly making a day of it. The Farmers Market in Fort Bragg got more customers than ever, reminding some of how the town lacks ethnic diversity.
“It”s nice for you all to add some color to Fort Bragg,” said Tomas DiFiore to a group battling to stretch their 15-foot sign despite a strong ocean breeze at Oak and Main.
The tribes were there to assert their federal treaty rights to seafood. The Marine Life Protection Act Initiative is a private initiative operating on a legal contract with the state to gather public input and create preliminary maps of areas to be closed to fishing.
Critics say MLPAI organizers failed to think through tribal claims when creating the process. California”s Fish and Game Commission created an emergency measure to correct the mistake, allowing native people only to gather in certain areas.
But this creates a nearly impossible enforcement situation and may be illegal under California law, MLPAI organizers have said.
John W. Corbett, senior attorney for the Yurok Tribe, told the MLPAI that decades of ethnic strife could result from MLPAI actions, later resulting in “some sort of co-management.”
Native speakers predicted that Indians would continue their harvesting practices as they had always done, no matter what new rules came out of the MLPAI.
Corbett said MLPAI could avoid many of the problems if the organization would become more open and transparent.
The agenda for the two-day meeting was only sent out this week, a violation of the Bagley-Keene Act”s noticing rules.
Corbett said if MLPAI could learn to follow the example of city councils, supervisors and other statewide bodies and send out agendas in a timely (and legal) manner, much of the acrimony could be avoided.
He said the tribes could then compose responses and provide much more meaningful input. He suggested the Blue Ribbon Task Force might like many of the ideas that would come forth, if only there was a sensible time frame for the conversation.
Agenda planning has been a definite weakness of the MLPAI process. The public comment discussion, scheduled to start at 4.p.m. Wednesday, started instead at 6 p.m. A packed house at C.V. Starr Community Center sat patiently through hour after hour of scientific material. While interesting, much of it referenced maps not visible and proposals made at previous meetings, which was all very hard to follow if a person had skipped any of those.
The two-hour delay irked some at remote sites. The Del Norte County Board of Supervisors” chair had waited nearly two hours to speak then had to leave just before the session started.
While both the visiting tribes and scientists all had long trips home, the morning session had been comprised of staff reports, which could have been held at any time. And then an extra-long lunch happened. Four of the scientific proposals, including one by Fort Bragg biologist Ron LeValley, were moved to Thursday, July 22. The start time of the Thursday meeting was moved back to 8 a.m.
The delays irked several coast residents, who were quick to say the confusion was intentional.
But tribal speakers had no complaints, at least not about the delay.
Priscilla Hunter, representing the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, tried to cheer up the grumpy audience with some deadpan humor, stopping to say “that was a joke” twice, her unique style then getting some reluctant laughs.
Hunter explained that the tribe understands the need for environmental preservation and had created a conservation easement on their land which prevents uses such as clearcutting in perpetuity.
“People change, Indians can change too. That”s why we did that,” she said.
But she and other speakers said the MLPAI process must recognize Native rights. One reason that has been difficult is that Native Americans have resisted identifying their fishing and gathering areas, saying doing so couldn”t help them and could hurt.
The MLPAI”s efforts to identify prime fishing areas as part of the process has missed a key point about secret fishing spots. Once put on the map they are no longer secret and fish are likely to be gone in short order.
Locals, asked to identify their favorite spots, provided highly questionable “fishing holes” to those creating maps of fishing areas.
Hunter closed by telling the Blue Ribbon Task Force that her tribe was featured recently in National Geographic and her picture was in the magazine.
“And I”m fully clothed in National Geographic,” she said, finally getting a big roar of laughter from the audience.
