|
By Kenneth R. Weiss
Los Angeles Times
August 16, 2006
MONTEREY — The California Fish and Game Commission on
Tuesday banned or severely restricted fishing across nearly
18% of the waters off Central California, beginning to roll
out the nation's first network of marine reserves next to a
heavily populated coastline.
The commissioners settled on a network of 29 marine protected
areas, stretching from Santa Barbara to Santa Cruz counties,
that collectively cover about 200 square miles of state
waters. About half are reserves that forbid any fishing; the
other protected areas ban commercial fishing or impose other
restrictions. Some of the areas are off Point Sur along the
Big Sur coast, Año Nuevo in northern Santa Cruz County,
Piedras Blancas near San Simeon and Vandenberg Air Force Base
near Lompoc.
This set of reserves, more than six years in the making, is
expected to be a model as additional reserves are created
along the entire California coast to help depleted fish
populations rebound.
"This is a landmark day, an historic day in
California," said Commissioner Cindy Gustafson of Tahoe
City. "We need to take great pride in our efforts to
protect the coast of California."
Although the Legislature passed a law in 1999 calling for a
statewide network of reserves, the plans have been stalled for
years by budget cuts, staffing shortages and ferocious
opposition from commercial and recreational fishermen who
argued that the closures would imperil their livelihoods or
pastimes.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, with funding from private
conservation foundations, revived the process by focusing
first on the Central Coast before considering reserves along
four other sections of the state's 1,100-mile coastline.
"Today's milestone makes California a national leader in
oceans management and is proof of what can be done when all
those involved — the fishing industry, environmentalists and
others — work together," Schwarzenegger said in a
statement.
Southern California waters, from Point Conception in western
Santa Barbara County to the Mexican border, will be the next
battleground in this innovative approach to ocean management.
Marine reserves represent the most restrictive effort to
revive plummeting fish stocks, some of which, experts say,
have fallen by as much as 95% in recent decades. Regulations
that limit the number of various types of fish that can be
caught have failed to stave off the decline marine scientists
fear could lead to a collapse of marine life. The reserves, by
making all fishing off-limits, are designed to protect every
marine creature in them — from the biggest bass to the
smallest snail — and their oceanic habitat.
In recent months and years, marine reserves have been set up
around the Channel Islands off Ventura and Santa Barbara
counties, some remote islands of the Florida Keys and the
northwest Hawaiian Islands.
Tuesday's unanimous vote by the five-member commission is the
first attempt to set up such a network of reserves in
near-shore waters along the continental United States. It
means closures next to urban centers with harbors and many
fishermen who depend on these waters to make a living or for
recreation.
Schwarzenegger, who has been courting conservation groups as
part of his bid for reelection, has pushed for full
implementation of the state's Marine Life Protection Act of
1999, which sets up the mechanism to establish the statewide
reserve network.
The reserves are designed to provide sanctuary for rockfish
and halibut, lobster, abalone and shellfish that remain in the
same area as opposed to albacore tuna, salmon, sardines and
other pelagic fish that swim great distances in the ocean. The
protected areas are also expected to benefit the endangered
sea otter and other imperiled marine mammals by increasing
available food.
Most of the reserves also offer protection for undersea
habitat, including kelp forests, rocky reefs, sandy seafloors
and deep ocean canyons, such as those in Monterey Bay. For the
most part, these areas will be marked off by straight lines on
nautical maps. Tuesday's vote came after six hours of
impassioned testimony from fishermen who said they would be
put out of business, from scuba divers who complained about
the dramatic loss of fish to photograph, and conservationists
who insisted that the reserves were the only way to save the
remnants of formerly robust fish populations off the coast.
Fred Keeley, a former Democratic assemblyman who represented
the Santa Cruz area and a co-author of the 1999 law, asked the
commissioners to adopt the strongest possible protections and
relax them at a later date, if needed.
"It took a long time for the oceans to get in this
perilous condition," Keeley told the commissioners.
"It's going to take a long time for them to heal."
After years of resisting the plan, fishermen at the meeting
appeared largely resigned to its inevitability. Instead of the
boisterous jeering and booing that have characterized past
meetings on the issue, commercial and recreational fishermen
joined forces to recommend their own plan with minimal
closures.
Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast
Federation of Fishermen's Associations, noted that the areas
where fishing will be banned will still be vulnerable to
another major assault on coastal marine life around the world:
coastal pollution.
He urged the commissioners to coordinate with state water
officials to clamp down on urban and farm runoff as well as
sewage discharges that force-feed the oceans toxic chemicals
and nutrients that stimulate growth of harmful algae.
"You can have all of the no-fishing zones you want, but
we are going to end up with [low-oxygen] dead zones or places
that are highly toxic to fish," Grader said.
Not all recreational fishermen opposed the closures.
The Cambria Fishing Club pushed to close waters just south of
town. "We hope that's a fish factory that will kick out
fish for us to catch," said Jim Webb, the club's
president. "We think it's a great idea to create an
opportunity to fish forever."
Only about 1% of the world's oceans are off limits to fishing.
But marine reserves have been popping up all over the world as
scientists, regulators — and some fishermen — have
recognized that traditional catch limits have failed to halt
steady declines of fish. More than two-thirds of commercially
important fish are fully exploited or in steep decline.
President Bush in June created the Northwest Hawaiian Islands
National Monument. The largest marine reserve in the world, it
is a strip about 100 miles wide and 1,200 miles long.
Steve Palumbi, a Stanford marine scientist, said California's
latest reserve system is a smart approach because it would
provide havens for fish to grow older. These older, larger
fish can produce many more eggs than their smaller
counterparts and, thus, do more to help restock areas that
have suffered from excessive fishing.
Palumbi said the new network of reserves should act like a
"safety net" to protect remnant fish populations
against catastrophic collapse. "If we ever take a deep
fall into that net, we have to make sure it doesn't
break."
|
