Arnold’s MLPA: An Egregious Case of Corporate Greenwashing

Arnold’s MLPA: An Egregious Case of Corporate Greenwashing

by Dan Bacher

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process, funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Foundation, is one of the most egregious examples of corporate greenwashing in California history. Rather than actually protect the ocean as the law was originally intended to do, Schwarzenegger and his collaborators have taken pollution, oil drilling, habitat protection and all other human uses of the ocean other than fishing off the table.

The MLPA Initiative is responsible for engaging in cultural genocide by banning the Kashia Pomo Tribe from harvesting seaweed and shellfish off their sacred site, “Danaka," in Sonoma County. It has showed no respect for tribal subsistence and ceremonial rights. This is an overt violation of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Article 32, Section 2, of the Declaration mandates "free prior and informed consent" in consultation with the indigenous population affected by a state action (http://www.iwgia.org/sw248.asp).

The MLPA Initiative is responsible for killing an endangered blue whale off Fort Bragg in October 2009 by contracting out a law-breaking survey operation to survey the ocean bottom.

It is responsible for until recently violating the Bagley-Keene Act and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by banning video and audio coverage of the initiative’s secretive work sessions.

It is responsible for installing an oil industry lobbyist, a marina developer, a real estate executive and other corporate interests as “marine guardians” to kick Indian Tribes, fishermen and seaweed harvesters, the greatest defenders of the oceans, off the ocean.

It is responsible for attempting to divide and conquer environmentalists, fishermen and tribal communities by trying to split them into separate groups in the Regional Stakeholders Group on the North Coast. Ken Wiseman, the executive director of the MLPA Initiative, has also issued a draconian "gag rule" that prohibits members of the stakeholders group from speaking to the press.

It is responsible for completely discarding the results of any scientists who disagree with the MLPA’s pre-ordained conclusions. These include the peer reviewed study by Dr. Ray Hilborn, Dr. Boris Worm and 18 other scientists, featured in Science magazine in July 2009, that concluded that the California current had the lowest rate of fishery exploitation of any place studied on the planet.

It is responsible for completely refusing to acknowledge that the northern California coast has the most restrictive bottomfish seasons of anywhere in the world along with the largest MPA in the United States – the Rockfish Conservation area that extends along the entire continental shelf of California.

Finally, it is responsible for refusing to hear the pleas of the representatives of California Fish and Game Wardens Association, who oppose the creation of any new MPAs until they have enough funding for wardens to patrol existing reserves. That’s why the wardens refer to MPAs as “Marine Poaching Areas.”

Why do NGO advocates of the MLPA process refuse to acknowledge the many problems of the MLPA, rather than showing some integrity by joining with environmental justice advocates, Indian Tribes, fishermen and real environmentalists to call for its suspension? Could it be that they’re afraid to challenge their funding source, the Resources Legacy Foundation, the private corporation that also funds the MLPA?

There is nothing “green” about the MLPA. It is part of Schwarzenegger’s plan to privatize resource management in California.

It is essential for everybody concerned about the future of California fisheries to understand that Schwarzenegger’s MLPA Initiative is designed to greenwash his campaign to build a peripheral canal and more dams and drive Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, green sturgeon and other species over the edge of extinction. The same corporate “environmentalists” at the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation and Nature Conservancy who support the peripheral canal as the “solution” to the Delta’s environmental crisis are the same ones who back the MLPA all of the way.

The direct connection between Schwarzenegger’s MLPA and peripheral canal campaigns is evidenced by the fact that Phil Isenberg has been the top official in both processes. Isenberg was chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the Central Coast, the first region targetted in the fast-track MLPA process. Schwarzenegger also selected Isenberg to be chair of the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, a thinly disguised process designed to further the Governor’s plan to build a peripheral canal to facilitate massive exports of water from the California Delta to corporate agribusiness and southern California. He also recently selected Isenberg to chair the Delta Stewardship Canal in order to make sure that the peripheral canal is built.

More recently, Schwarzenegger on May 14 appointed Michael Eaton, the executive director of the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy. It is very clear that the Governor has appointed Eaton, who has presided over the funding of MLPA process, to greenwash his plans to build the canal, an environmentally destructive plan that would cost Californians an estimated $23 billion to $53 billion.

There needs to be an immediate federal and state investigation of the corruption, conflicts of interests, mission creep, violations of human rights and other violations of state and federal laws that have occurred under the MLPA.

For more information about the violation of indigenous subsistence, cultural and religious rights under the MLPA, go to: http://www.fishsniffer.com/forums/content.php?r=221.