Arnold's World Ocean Conference: A Festival of Greenwashing and Injustice

Arnold's World Ocean Conference: A Festival of Greenwashing and Injustice

by Dan Bacher

The California and the World Ocean Conference (CWO) 2010, organized by the California Ocean Protection Council, the California Natural Resources Agency, and the California Environmental Protection Agency, started on September 7 and will run through September 10 at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco.

The event began Tuesday as union picketers surrounded the entrance and banged pots and pans in protest of the state agencies and their corporate allies for sponsoring the conference at the hotel, known for its anti-union policies.

The event, entitled "Our Changing Ocean: A Vision for the 21st Century," is a festival of corporate greenwashing, injustice and exclusion. Schwarzenegger is using the event to greenwash his abysmal ocean policies, led by his widely-criticized Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.

Fishermen, Indian Tribal members, seaweed harvesters and environmentalists have criticized his initiative, funded privately by the Shadowy Resources Legacy Foundation, for eviscerating the landmark law while violating numerous state, federal and international laws. The initiative has completely taken oil drilling, water pollution, aquaculture, wave energy projects, habitat destruction and all uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table in the creation of new marine protected areas (MPAs).

"I am committed to protecting the world's oceans and I know that by working together will make a difference - we already have," said Schwarzenegger, the same Governor who has presided over the collapse of Sacramento River chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta smelt, striped bass, green sturgeon and other species, in his statement in the conference show program. "We are establishing a network of marine protected areas, unlocking the secrets of the deep, working with West Coast Governors and the Premier of British Columbia to improve the health of the coast and seeking to improve the economic and environmental vitality in the Pacific Rim through the Pacific 2020 Challenge."

Schwarzenegger was originally scheduled to open Wednesday's plenary with a keynote address, along with John Hanke, the Vice President of Google Earth and Google Maps, and President Anote Tong of the Republic of Kiribati. Schwarzenegger cancelled out at the last minute, but Hanke and Tong both gave presentations.

Then on Thursday from 7 to 11 p.m., Congressman Sam Far and Jane Lubchenko, the Under Secretary for Ocean and Atmosphere under the Obama Administration, will talk about "Protecting Our Ocean: A National Perspective." Lubchencko, the former Vice Chair of the Board of Environmental Defense, is pushing a "catch shares" policy that privatizes ocean fish resources and concentrates fisheries into fewer, more wealthy hands.

Food and Water Watch, commercial fishing organizations and grassroots environmental groups are opposing the "catch shares" program. Marie Logan of Food and Watch, who is attending the conference, noted that there is a process of quota allocation (catch shares) being implemented to West Coast groundfish fisheries in the coming months and years.

The luncheon and closing event on Friday is entitled (you can't make this stuff up!) "Investing in Our Ocean's Future." The speakers listed are three of biggest names in ocean corporate greenwashing and privatization: David Rockefeller, President and Founding Member, Sailors for the Sea; Michael Sutton, Center for the Future of the Ocean, Monterey Bay Aquarium; and Steve McCormick, President and Trustee of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

The conference program consists of four plenary sessions, 64 concurrent sessions, and other events with hundreds of participants. In an apparent effort to make sure that grassroots fishermen, Tribal members, seaweed harvesters, environmentalists and biologists are kept out of the event, the registration is an amazingly high $375, while the basic registration is $200.

The program organizers also went out of their way to make sure that Tribal and fishing community members were excluded from or marginalized on the panels. There are no scientists or other representatives from California Indian Tribes that I could find on any of the panels, although Scott Williams, a lawyer for the Klamath Basin Tribes, is scheduled for the Klamath River Panel.

With the exception of Melvin de la Motte of the Central Coast Fisheries Conservation Coalition, I couldn't find any recreational fishermen invited to speak on the panels either. Likewise, only three commercial fishing representatives, including Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, were scheduled for panel presentations.

The "Fostering Effective Stakeholder Participation in the MLPA" panel, set for Thursday from 8 am to 9:45 am, is a prime example of how this conference is a festival of injustice, exclusion and greenwashing.

The moderator of this panel is Melissa Miller-Henson, Program Manager for the MLPA Initiative. The panel members are Bob Breen, Member of the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council; Calla Allison, Staff Director for the Orange County Marine Protected Area Council; Eugenia Laychahk, Principal of EJL & Associates; Sara Sikich, Coastal Resources Director of Heal the Bay; Matt Winslow, a student at Mendocino County High School; and Kelly Sayce, Outreach and Eduction Coordinator for the California MLPA.

There are no Tribal, fishing or grassroots environmental stakeholders scheduled to give their perspectives on fostering "effective stakeholder participation" in the MLPA process on this panel. Why were Tribes, recreational anglers and grassroots environmentalists completely excluded from this panel?

Is it because they might portray a view of "stakeholder participation" that are odds with the Schwarzenegger administration and well-funded corporate environmental NGOs?

Of course, no Schwarzenegger administration oceans event is complete without a speech from Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association. Reheis-Boyd will speak on a luncheon panel on Thursday, September 9 about "The Gulf Oil Spill: Lessons Regarding Prevention and Response."

Reheis-Boyd was the chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast and now sits on the task force for the North Coast. In recent months, she has repeatedly called for new oil drilling off the California Coast. What type of marine guardian is this?

In fact, what type of oceans conference is this, where the people most impacted by state and federal ocean policies are marginalized and excluded?

"This conference was done as decisions are always made by state agencies - without input from the local communities, especially from Tribes," said Georgiana Myers, Yurok Tribal member and Coastal Justice Coalition organizer. "They come into our territory and homeland to impose laws, rules and regulations that most of the time have a negative impact on us."

"The event organizers made no attempt to get any substantial representation from the commercial or recreational fishing industry, with the exception of three panels," said Zeke Grader, who spoke on the aquaculture and offshore energy panels. "Lots of good people in the industry were ignored."

"For those who struggle to make ends meet in the fishing industry, the Governor's ocean policies appear to be a kind of class warfare launched by the California elite against us," summed up Jim Martin, West Coast Regional Director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance.

Is this conference in reality a networking session for corporate leaders like David Rockefeller, Jr., John Hanke and Catherine Reheis-Boyd, corporate environmental "Gang Green" representatives, foundation heads and state and federal agency officials to discuss, promote and greenwash their plans to privatize ocean management and public trust resources?

The Program Guide for the California and the World Ocean '10 (CWO '10) conference is available online athttp://www.cce.csus.edu/cwo.