MLPA Motion to Terminate Tribal Rights on North Coast Fails

MLPA Motion to Terminate Tribal Rights on North Coast Fails

by Dan Bacher

Under political pressure from the Yurok Tribe and other North Coast Indian Tribes, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force decided on Thursday, December 10 not to approve an amendment that would have effectively terminated Tribal gathering and fishing rights.

The decision is a victory for the Tribes, fishermen and environmentalists who insisted that there be no changes to the unified marine protected area proposal developed by 33 stakeholders in a long, grueling and controversial process. The Klamath and Coastal Justice coalitions launched a campaign on Monday to urge the panel to stop any attempt to deny tribal subsistence and ceremonial rights - and this political pressure, along with a strongly worded letter by Yurok Tribal Chair Thomas O'Rourke and a letter from a coalition of other North Coast Tribes apparently worked.

"The MLPA is trying to ban any and all gathering along our coastline, including no traditional gathering whatsoever, in marine protected areas,” wrote Georgiana Myers, organizer of the Klamath Justice Coalition and Yurok Tribal member, in Monday's action alert. “I urge people to speak out against this insane idea of taking away what is not theirs to take!”

The task force held a teleconference call at three locations - Fort Bragg, Eureka and Crescent City to discuss the amendment. Though Tribal, fishing and environmental stakeholders attended the session at the different locations, there was no public comment period.

Task force member Greg Schem, in explaining his reasons for his amendment to the "Enhanced Compliance Alternative," said he was concerned when he read strong statements from a DFG briefing document that stated in essence that the Unified MPA Array didn’t follow the science guidelines of creating a marine protected area network and that something needed to be done.

In a letter to task force chair Cindy Gustafson on November 16, Schem stated, "After initially reviewing the two documents I went back to the October 26 video and reviewed the deliberations, as the language staff developed does not appear to capture the intent of my motion for the North Coast Enhanced Compliance Alternative MPA Proposal. My intent was to provide to the California Fish and Game Commission an alternative MPA proposal that came closer to meeting the science guidelines to ensure that the statewide system of MPAs would help achieve the goals of the MLPA.”

The DFG briefing document claimed, “The current proposal has low prospects of meeting network goals within the study region, or effectively contributing to the coastwide network of MPAs established in California."

However, all of the other task force members spoke in opposition to any changes to the unified proposal, noting the unique nature of the remote, lightly fished North Coast and all of the effort that Tribal, fishing and environmental stakeholders made in coming up with a unified proposal, the first time it has been done in the widely-contested MLPA process.

"I don’t think we should adopt further action," said task force member Roberta Reyes Cordero. "The motion would, in essence, deprive the tribes of harvesting rights and would also destroy the trust that has been carefully built up over this process."

Task force member Virginia Strom-Martin emphasized, "I just can't get over the fact that the proposal was accepted by every community on the North Coast."

After an hour of discussion, the task force decided to leave their motions from the October 26 meeting as they stand, with no additional alternatives or changes proposed. The task force on that day approved a unified proposal for marine protected areas on the North Coast from Fort Bragg to the California/Oregon border.

The proposal will be presented to the Fish and Game Commission on February 2, 2011, after Governor-Elect Jerry Brown takes office.

Georgiana Myers, organizer for the Klamath Justice Coalition and Yurok Tribal member, was glad to see that the task force failed to approve the motion to terminate tribal rights.

"We hope that sovereign tribal rights will stay in the forefront of the MLPA process," Myers emphasized. "This should be true in every region that is impacted by the MLPA, especially on the North Coast. We will be organizing people to show up in numbers for the Commission meeting in February."

After the MLPA teleconference, members of the Coastal Justice Coalition conducted a direct action off Redwood Creek as a way of showing that tribal people will not comply with so-called marine "protected" areas created under the MLPA. "We urge people to take direct action in their own areas by continuing tribal gathering along the coast," she added.

Jim Martin, West Coast Director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, was also relieved that the task force refused to second Schem's motion.

"This motion would have turned the intent of the stakeholders proposal backwards," he noted. "Rather than allow tribal gathering as the unified proposal intended to do, this motion would have banned tribal gathering until the Legislature passed legislation allowing tribal members to gather along the coast."

For more information on the Coastal Justice Coalition, go to: http://www.klamathjustice.blogspot.com.

A copy of the Motions, released on the California DFG website on November 16, 2010 can be found at: http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/recommendations_nc.asp.

The Briefing Document Q2, California Department of Fish and Game Evaluation and Comments on the Final (Round 3) Stakeholder Proposal for Marine Protected Areas in the Marine Life Protection Act North Coast Study Region, is available online at http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/meeting_102510.asp] The document is based on an oral presentation made on Oct. 25-26, 2010, was not available during the BRTF meeting and was not made available to the public until Nov. 30, 2010.

Meanwhile, the California Fish and Game Commission at its December 15-16 in Santa Barbara could vote to enclose approximately 15 percent of southern California’s coastal waters within marine protected areas (MPAs) under the MLPA process.

These MPAs will do nothing to "protect" the ocean from water pollution, oil spills, oil drilling, wave energy projects, military testing and other human uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering.

Fishermen, tribal members and environmentalists have criticized the MLPA process for numerous conflicts of interests, mission creep and corruption of the democratic process. The task forces oversee the process are filled with oil industry, real estate, marina development and other corporate interests. In a bad precedent for public policy in California, the initiative is privately funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation.