The questions that Arnold's MLPA proponents don’t want to answer

The questions that Arnold's MLPA proponents don’t want to answer

by Dan Bacher

Faced with massive opposition by Indian Tribes, fishermen and environmentalists, officials from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fast-track Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative keep repeating the mantra that the process is "open, transparent and inclusive" and "science-based."

The proponents of the process refuse to address the many criticisms that advocates of true ocean protection have leveled against the MLPA Initiative. I have challenged MLPA proponents to answer a series of hard questions that cut to the core of the current MLPA process.

None have responded yet to my specific questions, but only continue to repeat their unsubstantiated claims that the Initiative is “open, transparent and inclusive” and that anybody who criticizes the initiative is an opponent of “ocean protection.”

The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) is a comprehensive, landmark law that was signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999. The MLPA, as amended in 2004, is very broad in its scope.

The law was intended to not only restrict or prohibit fishing in a network of “marine protected areas,” but to restrict or prohibit other human activities including coastal development and water pollution.

“Coastal development, water pollution, and other human activities threaten the health of marine habitat and the biological diversity found in California’s ocean waters,” the law states in Fish and Game Code Section 2851, section c.

The law also broadly defines a “marine protected area” (MPA) as “a named, discrete geographic marine or estuarine area seaward of the mean high tide line or the mouth of a coastal river, including any area of inertial or sub tidal terrain, together with its overlying water and associated flora and fauna that has been designated by law, administrative action, or voter initiative to protect or conserve marine life and habitat” (Fish and Game Code 2852, section c).

Furthermore, the law also defines a "Marine life reserve," as “a marine protected area in which all extractive activities, including the taking of marine species, and, at the discretion of the commission and within the authority of the commission, other activities that upset the natural ecological functions of the area, are prohibited. While, to the extent feasible, the area shall be open to the public for managed enjoyment and study, the area shall be maintained to the extent practicable in an undisturbed and unpolluted state” (Fish and Game Code 2852, section d).

However, the implementation of the law under Schwarzenegger has become a parody of real marine protection. The MLPA process under Schwarzenegger has taken oil drilling, water pollution, wave energy development, habitat destruction and other human uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table. The MLPA would do nothing to stop another Exxon Valdez or Deepwater Horizon oil disaster from devastating the California coast.

Here are the questions:

Why did the Governor and MLPA officials install an oil industry lobbyist, a marina developer, a real estate executive and other corporate interests as “marine guardians” to remove Indian Tribes, fishermen and seaweed harvesters from the water by creating so-called "marine protected areas" (MPAS)? Isn’t this very bad public policy?

Why is Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, allowed to make decisions as the chair of the BRTF for the South Coast and as a member of the BRTF for the North Coast, panels that are supposedly designed to “protect” the ocean, when she has called for new oil drilling off the California coast? Do we want to see oil rigs off Point Arena, Fort Bragg and other areas of some of the most beautiful coastline of North America?

Why is a private corporation, the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, being allowed to privatize ocean resource management in California through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the DFG?

Why do the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) and Science Advisory Team continue to violate the California Public Records Act by refusing to respond to numerous requests by Bob Fletcher, former DFG Deputy Director, for key documents and records pertaining to the MLPA implementation process?

Why do MLPA staff and the California Fish and Game Commission refuse to hear the pleas of the representatives of the 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?

Why did MLPA staff until recently violate the Bagley-Keene Act and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by banning video and audio coverage of the initiative’s work sessions?

Why has the Initiative shown 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 also violates Article 26, Section 3, that declares, “States shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources. Such recognition shall be conducted with due respect to the customs, traditions and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned.”

Why are there no Tribal scientists on the MLPA Science Advisory Team and why were there no Tribal representatives on the Blue Ribbon Task Forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast or South Coast MLPA Study Regions?

Why does the initiative discard 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.

Why does the MLPA Initiative refuse to acknowledge California Indian Tribes as sovereign nations?

Finally, why did 300 Tribal members, fishermen, immigrant workers and environmentalists feel so left out of the MLPA process that they had to organize a march and direct action to take over a MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting in Fort Bragg of July 21 so their voices would be finally heard?

I urge you to sign a petition to support Assemblyman Wesley Chesbro’s call for a six-month delay in the North Coast MLPA process at: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/saveoceanacsess/

Second, please sign this petition to the State of California to acknowledge and include Tribal traditional uses within state regulations for marine protected areas of the MLPA Initiative. Go to the Inter-Tribal Water Commission of California website: http://www.itwatercommission.org. There is a link at the bottom of the posting that goes to: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/protect-traditional-lifeways-in-the-marine-life-protection-act/ For more information about the MLPA, visit http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa.