Officials approve network of Southern California marine reserves [Updated]

The California Fish and Game Commission approved a plan Wednesday that will restrict or ban fishing along the Southern California coastline from Point Conception to the U.S.-Mexico border.

The 3-2 vote by the commission will limit fishing in more than 350 square miles of ocean waters -- about 15% of the Southern California coast -- and will likely take effect sometime in 2011.

[Updated at 11 a.m.: A map of the decisions made Wednesday can be viewed at www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/pdfs/scmpas121510.pdf]

The regulations come more than a decade after the Legislature passed the Marine Life Protection Act in 1999, which requires the state to reevaluate and redesign California's system of marine protected areas, or reserves.

Wednesday's vote was the final approval after two years of heated debates between conservation groups pushing for strict curbs on fishing to preserve marine habitat and recreational anglers and commercial fishing groups working to protect ocean access.

Times staff writer Tony Barboza was in Santa Barbara covering Wednesday's vote. His full article can be read here: State adopts network of protected marine areas

-- Kelly Burgess
twitter.com/latimesoutposts

Photo: An angler casts into the Pacific off Orange County. Credit: Christina House / For The Times

Comments

[Tim Dooling]

Sadly for everyone, this is just the beginning. The whole process that led up to this was so completly flawed, utterly FUBAR that will be court battles into eternity on this. Shame on the BRC, DFG and all the other donut-eaters who did this.

I am a lifelong commercial and sport fisherman, and me and my ilk have a stronger interest in healthy conservation than any of those kids the PEW foundation and Packard Trust paid to buss into the DFG meetings (cmon....what was that all about??) People who will lose their livelihoods, and trying to tell their story got drowned out by the pithy emotional appleals of il-informed college students. Bad.....

"Closed Session" deliberations coming up with "Integrated Preferred Alternatives", with no debate, no input, and no minutes published. An agenda controlled by politicians, moving meetings hundreds of miles at the last minute. (you know howmany fishermen got in their trucks to drive from San Diego to Mendocino only never to be heard?) This is the kind of stuff that goes to the Supreme Court.

There is a right way, and a wrong way.....if it was done transparently there would not be a need for the upcoming litigation.....believe me, my pockets are not deep, but one way or another I am going to be feeding lawyers money forever.....how is that good for anybody except the lawyer?
In summary, conservation is good, MLPA's are good, but politics is BAD, and when something BAD is invlolved in the creation of something good, it is doomed to failure.

I wish the hardcore conservation/idealists would only listen to other viewpoints, they might just learn something, and we would not be in the legal limbo that we are going to be in. I know as a fact that the fishermen of southern california have spent more time/effort on the water observing fish and understanding them, than all the scientists involved in this process combined by a factor of 1000. All the reports on the website, product of millions of grants and 10's of thousands of "scientists", or the generations of knowledge resident in this community.....

One guy I know summed it up best with: "Dang scientist can't catch a fish and immediately reckons it's not there....spend 100 years soaking a dead bait on the NW Corner in a cold uphill current and he'll think there's no fish in the sea!

What do we tell our kids, "If your going to do something, do it right the first time, then you won't need to fix it"......if only politicians understood this simple virtue.......td

[Pat goss]

FYI The scientists who originally proposed the MLPA's get money in the form of grants to study its effects. All they have to do is adjust their junk science to theie point of view. They are making huge $$$.

[Pat goss]

1%! not here they say 15%. Like I said before that 15% is where most of the fish are. You have been led a load of misinformation, the overfishing problem is caused by the COMMERCIAL FISHING Company's. They catch more fish in 1 day than the recreational fisherman do in 5 years. Jeese open your eyes, have you ever heard of a grant from the federal government or the so called environmental movement who have money to burn. Go after the real problem POLLUTION and The COMMERCIAL FISHERMEN. Not the public.

[Denis]

Pat! Are you serious? Scientists getting money!?!? The advocates for this are not just scientists but environmentalists and the every day "Joe" who cares about what we as society are doing to the environment. The extension of this reserve is a much needed gain in the protection of our marine ecosystems that should take place across the globe. In case you are unaware, which I am sure you are, is overfishing. Before you sing "whoa is me" for little Johnny and his dad you should realize that 99% of the Earth's oceans are fishable, yes that's right a measly 1% is put aside for marine reserves.

[Pat goss]

What a hoax ! The sky is falling! The public recreational fishermen get reemed again. These so called Scientists are in this for the grant $$ and nothing else. They say it is only 15% of the waters the trouble is it is 95% OF WHERE THE FISH ARE. If we spent more time and money on the pollution being dumped in the ocean and the COMMERCIAL fisherman we might be getting towards the solution. This will do nothing but stop little Johnny and his dad from catching a few fish ( there are restrictions and size limits in place) and put a lot of MONEY in these so called scientists pocket. What a crime against the average Joe fisherman who takes a few fish at time.