Stakeholder group enters MLPA process

By John Driscoll, Eureka Times-Standard
February 9, 2010

A 32-member group of people representing North Coast and state interests in the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative met for the first time Monday in front of video cameras and big screens connected to a dock of laptop computers.

The kickoff of three Regional Stakeholder Group meetings was meant to introduce the members to the process of developing marine reserves -- or Marine Protected Areas -- off the North Coast. Initiative staff told the group that they were chosen because they are believed to be good listeners committed to finding common ground.

"This is heavy lifting,” said MLPA Initiative Executive Director Ken Wiseman. “This is passionate.”

The planning process for the 1999 act is just beginning in the fourth of five regions, this time in state waters along the coast of Humboldt, Del Norte and Mendocino counties. The act calls for a coordinated network of zones that are off limits or restricted to fishing and gathering, and has been a major source of controversy among fishing and tribal communities along the California coast.

The beginning of the two-day meeting at the Red Lion Hotel was meant to establish some ground rules and lay out procedures the group will be following. The group is charged with sending along a small number of proposals -- or “arrays” -- to a Blue Ribbon Task Force, which will make recommendations to the state Fish and Game Commission, which is scheduled to make a final decision in December. Along the way, a Science Advisory Team will review the proposals.

The diverse interests, competing uses and different expectations of those in the group will make the process challenging, said MLPA Initiative Program Manager Melissa Miller-Henson.

"Challenges are actually opportunities in disguise,” Miller-Henson said.

Miller-Henson said that the group is not meeting to debate the merits for the MLPA or the usefulness of MPAs, or to identify a certain percentage of state waters that should be included in MPAs.

Eight different arrays have been submitted to the initiative and are undergoing a technical review. A proposal submitted by the North Coast Interest MPA Work Group calls for a handful of marine protected areas that it believes will minimize economic harm to fishing, gathering and traditional tribal uses. Others range from fewer areas with less restrictions to more MPAs with a higher level of protection.

There are three basic types of MPAs. A marine reserve is the most restrictive, allowing no extractive activities. A state marine park limits all commercial fishing and gathering and can restrict recreational fishing and gathering. A state marine conservation area puts special restrictions on, but allows, both commercial and sport fishing and gathering.

Recently appointed Blue Ribbon Task Force member Jimmy Smith, also Humboldt County's 1st District supervisor, welcomed the group. He said that the expertise of the individuals on the stakeholder group will guide and inform the task force through a project of great magnitude and complexity.

"You are in the lead,” Smith said.

The Regional Stakeholder Group is expected to meet again in May.

Mix-up to begin for MLPA proposals

By John Driscoll, Eureka Times-Standard
February 7, 2010

A number of proposals to create marine reserves off the North Coast have gone into the blender, as a 31-member group formed under the state Marine Life Protection Act Initiative meets for the first time on Monday.

A group of local stakeholders and conservationists say their proposals are meant to soften the economic and social blow anticipated with the shutting down or restricting fishing and gathering in some areas along the sparsely populated coast. But while several proposals are roughly similar, few of them appear to meet the guidelines set up by the 1999 act.

That means that whatever comes out of the mix over the next year is likely to be more restrictive than what local interests have proposed. The initiative's staff are currently reviewing the submissions, which are expected to be made public on Feb. 16.

Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District Conservation Director Adam Wagschal said that each type of reserve proposed in various coastal habitats is added up to meet the state's requirements. Wagschal coordinated the proposal submitted by the North Coast Local Interest MPA Working Group -- composed of local agencies, commercial and sport fishing and other stakeholders from Humboldt, Del Norte and Mendocino counties.

"Everything contributes a certain amount toward meeting the guidelines,” Wagschal said.

According to those guidelines, each marine reserve should stretch along at least 3 to 6 miles of coast, but preferably be 6 to 12.5 miles long. They should also be within 31 to 62 miles of each other. That's based on the idea that larvae from fish and other organisms can travel between reserves.

The guidelines have been challenged by local fisheries biologists who say the North Coast's habitats and currents are different than the rest of the state's, and should be treated differently. They also cite existing closures and fishing regulations that currently limit fishing in both state and federal waters in the region, much of which is inaccessible due to weather for large portions of the year.

The North Coast is the fourth of five regions in which the MLPA has planned marine protected areas -- or MPAs -- which range from restricting all fishing and harvesting of shellfish and seaweed to allowing some commercial fishing and gathering. The reserves are in state waters, which go out 3 miles along California's 1,100-mile coastline.

The first set of reserves proposed by the North Coast interest group calls for a 21-square-mile reserve from the Del Norte County line to just south of the mouth of the Smith River. Moving south, another marine reserve is proposed for the area north of Reading Rock, and butts up against a marine conservation area in shallower waters to the east. Commercial crab fishing would be allowed in the conservation area. Much of the reserve area around the rock is already off limits to rockfish fishing, which can't be done in water deeper than 120 feet.

The next reserve to the south is a special marine recreational management area pitched for the southwestern portion of Humboldt Bay. This encompasses much of the bay's important eel grass habitat and estuaries flowing into South Bay, but hunting and clamming would be allowed.

A 13.2-square-mile marine conservation area is proposed for the area around the mouth of the Eel River, where crabbing would still be allowed but salmon trolling in shallow water could be restricted. An existing rockfish conservation area at Punta Gorda would effectively be expanded to a marine reserve of 19.4 square miles on either side of the mouth of the Mattole River, under the proposal.

The North Coast group opted not to propose any MPAs around Shelter Cove, Wagschal said, out of concern that the small fishing community could suffer disproportionately from any further restriction.

Tim Klassen, who runs the charter operation Reel Steel Sportfishing out of Eureka, said that the proposal for the most part avoids major losses to sport fishing along the coast. Klassen said he believes it fulfills the spirit of the MLPA while leaving most valuable fishing areas open. But it's no cause for celebration, Klassen said, as the process to form MPAs is just getting started.

“Are we excited about it?” Klassen said. “No.”

A series of meetings of the 31-member regional stakeholder group will be held over the next several months to hammer out proposals -- or “arrays” -- to be sent to the state's Blue Ribbon Task Force. It will develop a set of proposals in March, narrow them down in May, and select one to three arrays in September. A Science Advisory Team will review the proposals along the way.

"There's a whole lot of opportunity between February and September for the public to be actively involved in providing input,” said initiative Program Manager Melissa Miller-Henson.

That group will make final recommendations to the Blue Ribbon Task Force, which will then select a preferred proposal to send to the California Fish and Game Commission, which is expected to receive the proposal in December.

Environmental groups Humboldt Baykeeper and the Ocean Conservancy have proposed a similar set of reserves for the North Coast, with some exceptions. They have proposed a conservation area off False Cape just north of the Klamath River mouth, and an addition to the one proposed for the west side of Reading Rock. The North Coast group's reserve off Punta Gorda is a conservation area in the environmental group's proposal, and is shifted slightly south.

The MPAs proposed by the North Coast group would allow traditional tribal uses, hunting and gathering for cultural, subsistence and ceremonial purposes. Yurok Tribe Acting Self-Governance Officer Megan Rocha said that the tribe saw a lot of support in the community, but questioned whether the state would be satisfied with the exceptions. If the language isn't accepted, Rocha said, the tribe won't support any MPA in Yurok ancestral territory.

"There's still quite a bit of work to be done to make sure that tribal uses along the coast are not affected in any way,” she said.

The Humboldt Baykeeper and Ocean Conservancy proposals calls for only conservation areas, the least restrictive type of MPA. That is a difference in approach taken by the North Coast group and the environmental groups in trying to protect American Indian traditional fishing and gathering uses along the coast.

Ocean Conservancy spokeswoman Jennifer Savage said there is not a clear method for allowing tribal uses laid out in the MLPA. She said the difference between the two groups' proposals doesn't represent a difference in intent, but rather in approach.

Savage said the conservation groups pitched a separate proposal to include other areas in the mix in an effort to meet state guidelines, not because there was a major disagreement on what areas should be MPA's.

"These are just conversation starters,” Savage said. “Nobody is looking at it like an absolute.”

There are also several other proposals for MPAs along the North Coast, some of which pitch smaller and less restrictive zones and others which look to create larger but less restrictive areas.

The end product is also likely to change substantially as different organizations, including major environmental organizations, weigh in. The Natural Resources Defense Council and the Mendocino Chapter of the Sierra Club have proposed a series of MPAs which they say fully protect 8 percent of state waters and partially protect 9 percent of state waters between the Oregon border and Punta Gorda. Their proposal is focused on several areas to the south of Punta Gorda.

The two groups' maps of the reserves have been forwarded to the initiative, but are not yet available for viewing on an MLPA clearinghouse Web site.

Even with the North Coast working group's relatively light-touch proposal, commercial fishermen say they've made major concessions. The Pelican Bay reserve area is in significant Dungeness crabbing grounds, for example, and crabbing is the most valuable fishery the North Coast fleet has left. Humboldt Fisherman's Marketing Association President Aaron Newman said that the local groups have worked well together in drafting the proposals -- but that the association can't sign off on them, even though it helped create the North Coast working group draft.

"We're going to lose,” Newman said. “Why would anyone endorse a loss?”

MLPA Initiative Announces New Member of Stakeholder Group

By Dan Bacher, IndyBay
February 7, 2010

Under political pressure from North Coast fishermen and environmentalists, California’s MLPA Initiative staff on Saturday, February 6 announced that Jim Bassler, a Mendocino County commercial fisherman, has been added to the MLPA North Coast Regional Stakeholder Group.

The stakeholder group is responsible for developing recommendations for "alternative marine protected areas" to help the State of California implement Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's controversial fast-track Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process.

"This past week, many citizens contacted the director of Fish and Game, John McCamman, and the chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force, Cindy Gustafson, to request more representation of commercial fishing interests in the Mendocino County area," according to Annie Reisewitz from the MLPA Initiative.

"Members of the stakeholder group are intended to help ensure that multiple perspectives are heard in the MLPA Initiative’s marine protected area planning process," Reisewitz stated. "Jim Bassler has the experience and ability to reach out and include not only commercial fishing interests but also the interests of all communities along the Mendocino coastline. Bassler is a small-boat fisherman who fishes primarily for nearshore rockfish, crab and salmon along the Mendocino coast; he a member of the Salmon Trollers Marketing Association in Fort Bragg."

Bassler’s addition brings the stakeholder group to a total of 32 residents of Del Norte, Humboldt and Mendocino counties within the MLPA North Coast Study Region, which encompasses state waters from the California-Oregon border to Alder Creek near Point Arena in Mendocino County.

The stakeholder group will work with a blue ribbon task force, science advisory team, and MLPA staff "to help California improve the design and management of the north coast portion of a statewide network of marine protected areas," said Reisewitz. The first meeting of the stakeholder group is Monday, Feb. 7 and Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2010 at the Red Lion Inn, 1929 Fourth Street in Eureka.

"We're pleased that Jim Bassler was appointed," said Jim Martin, the Mendocino County MLPA Outreach Coordinator. "He was one of the people nominated by the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors to be on the stakeholders group. However, there are still gaps in representation from Mendocino County."

For example, there are no representatives from Albion Harbor or from grassroots ocean protection groups, such as Judith Vidaver, chair of the Ocean Protection Coalition. "We hope the initiative staff fills these gaps," said Martin.

Collectively, the stakeholder group members represent "broad interests and perspectives" from the states north coast region, from the border with Oregon to the Point Arena area in Mendocino County, according to a Department of Fish and Game news release. The stakeholder group includes representatives of recreational angling and diving groups, tribes, commercial fishing and other ocean-dependent business interests, ports and harbors, conservation groups, educational and research interests, and government agencies.

Critics of Schwarzenegger's MLPA process have charged that the process is rife with conflicts of interest, mission creep and the corruption of the democratic process and violates tribal sovereignty by not considering traditional seaweed gathering and fishing rights.

For more information about the MLPA Initiative, please visit http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa.


Below is the list of members of the stakeholders group prior to the addition of the new member:

California Marine Life Protection Act Initiative

Members of the North Coast Regional Stakeholder Group
Revised January 27, 2010

Steve Chaney, Superintendent, Redwood National Park

Russ Crabtree, Tribal Administrator, Smith River Rancheria

Greg Dale, Southwest Operations Manager, Coast Seafood Company

John Dixon, Ecologist, California Coastal Commission
Henry “Ben” Doane, board member, Humboldt Area Saltwater Anglers and Klamath Management Zone Fisheries Coalition
Brandi Easter, member, Humboldt Skin Divers

Don Gillespie, retired teacher and board member, Friends of Del Norte and Smith River Alliance

Benjamin Henthorne, Environmental Coordinator, Hopland Band of Pomo Indians

Jacque Hostler, Chief Executive Officer and Transportation & Land-Use Director, Trinidad Rancheria

Robert Jamgochian, educator, Mendocino High School of Natural Resources

Dave Jensen, President, Mendocino Coast Audubon Society

Tim Klassen, Owner, Reel Steel Sportfishing

Larry Knowles, Owner, Rising Tide Sea Vegetables

Zack Larson, Consultant, Zack Larson and Associates and Chair, Del Norte County Fish and Game Advisory Commission

William Lemos, retired teacher and consultant, Natural Resources Defense Council

Kevin McGrath, member, Shelter Cove Fisherman’s Alliance

Kevin McKernan, California Program Director, National Conservation System Foundation

Aaron Newman, President, Humboldt Fisherman’s Marketing Association

Pete Nichols, Executive Director, Humboldt Baykeeper

Charlie Notthoff, Owner, Nothoff Underwater Service

Megan Rocha, Assistant Self Governance Officer, Yurok Tribe

Jennifer Savage, North Coast Program Coordinator, The Ocean Conservancy

Valerie Stanley, member, Noyo River Indian Community

Atta Stevenson, Acting President, Inter-Tribal Council of California and member, Laytonville Rancheria

Thomas Trumper, Owner/diver, Pacific Rim Seafood

Adam Wagschal, Conservation Director, Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District

Rob Wakefield, member, Del Norte Fisherman’s Marketing Association

Reweti Wiki, Tribal Administrator, Elk Valley Rancheria

Harold Wollenberg, professional geologist

David Wright, member, NorCal Kayak Anglers and Vice Chair, Surfrider Foundation’s Mendocino Chapter

Richard Young, Chief Executive Officer and Harbormaster, Crescent City Harbor District

MPA plans due Monday

Groups are trying to reach an accord on restricted areas

By Kurt Madar, The Daily Triplicate
February 01, 2010

Marine protected areas are coming to the North Coast, and a local effort to influence where and what size they are culminates Monday.

The MPAs could include the establishment of no-take zones for fishermen.

The state-sponsored Marine Life Protection Act Initiative includes an option that allows MPA proposals to be submitted by individuals and groups outside of the official process.

Meanwhile, part of the official process is forming a Science Advisory Team (SAT) and a Regional Stakeholder Group, both of which will be responsible for developing the state-sponsored proposal for the location and types of MPAs along the North Coast.

The names of the regional stakeholder group were released Thursday night.

External proposals for potential MPAs are developed by individuals and groups outside of the SAT or stakeholder group, and they have to be submitted by Feb. 1.

In response to the MLPA Initiative starting its process along the North Coast, local governments and organizations formed a work group in an effort to have a cohesive region-wide alternative proposal.

“We’ve been working non-stop to meet the deadline,”

said Zach Larson, Del Norte County’s work-group coordinator. “We were looking to have one external array proposal for the whole region, but now it looks like there may be as many as six.”

This was not due to a lack of cohesiveness in the North Coast effort to submit an external proposal, he said.

Larson said that the people on a tri-county work-group have not only worked well together, “they have been able to compromise and everyone learned a lot about working together as a region.”

“We invited all 18 groups that sent in an intent to submit (external proposal),” Larson said. “There were a lot of cross interests.”

Of the various external proposals that may be submitted Monday, Larson feels that the one that represents Del Norte County is as palatable as possible.

“Our goal was to meet all the science guidelines while limiting the effect on the local economy as much as possible,” Larson said.

Nine of the 31 members of the North Coast stakeholder group whose names were released Thursday are Del Norte County residents. The North Coast study region includes Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte Counties.

Local members include:

• Redwood National Park Superintendent Steve Chaney
• Smith River Rancheria Tribal Administrator Russ Crabtree
• Smith River Alliance and Friends of Del Norte board member Don Gillespie
• Fisheries Biology consultant Zach Larson
• National Conservation System Foundation California Program Officer Kevin McKernan
• Yurok Tribe Assistant Self Governance Officer Megan Rocha
• Del Norte Fisherman’s Marketing Association member Rob Wakefield
• Elk Valley Rancheria Tribal Administrator Reweti Wiki
• Crescent City Harbormaster Richard Young

Another View: Wardens not staffed for sufficient enforcement

By Jerry Karnow, Special to The Sacramento Bee
January 31, 2010

California's Fish and Game wardens are responsible for enforcing fishing and hunting laws, and have jurisdiction over illegal water diversions and water pollution. Wardens are the front-line defense for all natural resources that belong to all 38 million Californians.

We are California's "environmental police." Shamefully, California has the "lowest ratio of wardens to population of any state or province in North America," as stated in The Bee article "Wildlife panel seeks furlough exception" (Capitol & California, Jan. 23).

It is impossible for the warden force to effectively enforce existing regulations, much less new regulations that the Fish and Game Commission approves over our objections. Many of the regulations approved by the commission will not protect the natural resources of California. They will serve only one purpose; they will stretch the warden force ever thinner, which will eventually result in another warden's on-duty injury or death.

We take no policy position on the Marine Life Protection Act. Yet the act is a hollow regulation and unenforceable. The Department of Fish and Game has reported to the commission that enforcement cost for the Marine Life Protection Act for the first year of implementation will be $27 million and annually thereafter, the cost for enforcement will be a minimum of $17 million. While it seeks to design Marine Protected Areas, my warden colleagues have a different meaning for "MPA" – we call them Marine Poaching Areas. Since the protection act closes productive fishing areas, poachers will know where to rape our resources, and they will know that there is unlikely to be any law enforcement presence or legal anglers present to turn in poachers.

The governor does not support wardens; his actions speak louder than words. He says he supports wardens but his Department of Personnel Administration opposes the warden request for severance from their current bargaining unit. He keeps wardens on furlough yet eliminates furloughs from non-sworn peace officers in our own bargaining unit.

Commissioner Richard Rogers of Fish and Game has approved new regulations knowing they cannot be enforced. Rogers said in the article that "I'm very disappointed the governor chose to restrict the amount of time that the wardens can put in." Hopefully, Rogers will change his position and oppose regulations placing additional duties upon wardens.

We truly appreciate the commission's letter to the governor. But, it is our hope the commission will back up its words with action, otherwise they are just words and meaningless echoes of the governor.

Save the Date! Fishermen's Cioppino Dinner at Portugese Hall March 13

The North Coast Fishing Association, in conjunction with the California Fisheries Coalition, will be hosting a family-style cioppino dinner on Saturday, March 13, at Portugese Hall in Fort Bragg. Doors open at 5 p.m., with a raffle, auction and no-host bar.

Proceeds support the engagement of the local fishing community in the MLPA process. The North Coast Fishing Association has been supporting a lawsuit against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for its lack of a comprehensive plan on wave energy projects.

Support your sustainable seafood providers and sample locally caught seafood. For more information, call (707) 964-3710. Tickets ($35 per person) are available at the Noyo Fishing Center and Redwood Liquors in Fort Bragg.

If you want to promote our local fishing communities, call us. We need donations of seafood, volunteers and raffle items.

Save the date and spread the word!

MLPAI: The Thousand-Year View

By John Lewallen, Public Ocean Access Network

The conflict between “conservationists” and “preservationists” as it shapes fisheries policy and law is analyzed by Laura L. Manning in her 1989 study focused on marine mammals. “Preservationism,” as practiced by the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative (MLPAI), exploits a culturally suicidal belief that human beings must be removed from the ocean food chain in order to keep fisheries from collapsing worldwide.

This belief is obviously untrue on California’s North Coast, where we have enjoyed two annual seasons of super-nutritious upwelling in the world’s cleanest and best-managed ocean fishery in the world.

Living with North Coast wild seaweed for thirty years, I see that in a thousand years the intertidal and nearshore ocean will always be a basic source of essential human nutrition. People will use the same access points, and the same fishing and diving areas, as have been used for the past thousand years.

Now the “preservationists” are so-called “environmentalists” who oppose the basic inspiration of the environmental movement: the truth that human beings are part of the Earth’s whole ecosystem. The protectionists fantasize a pristine, primordial ocean ecosystem without humans in it, much as the European invaders of North America fantasized an uninhabited, virgin wilderness.

The sea otter and harp seal are the preservation movement’s best money-producing poster children. The preservationists who drive the MLPAI are primarily funded by ocean industrialists: corporate money, coming through Packard and Pew, made anonymous by the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation.

Ocean industrialists and the new preservationists love each other, and they are leading the world on a suicidal quest to remove essential ocean food providers from the ocean food chain. The industrialists have bought a science to make a new marine management orthodoxy out of Marine Protected Areas, acting primarily through Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea (COMPASS).

In California today, the government is broke; the super-rich and big corporations have all the money. In the MLPAI process, the Pew-Packard-RLFF finances the Governor, the Legislators, the foundation-funded careerists in protectionist groups, the process itself, Fish & Game Commissioners, the mass media.

With a thousand-year eye, this attempt to impose no-take zones on North Coast fisheries is foredoomed. The people doing it are trying to cut themselves off from essential food for human health and survival. It won’t work here, not for long.