[Saba Slayer]

WOW...Thanks DFW...Changing the rules whenever it suits them and screwing the fisherman in the process!!!

CA regulators plan to do regional reviews of MPAs only once a decade
by Dan Bacher

State officials had originally planned to conduct a regional review of the so-called “marine protected areas” created under the controversial Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative every five years, but they have now reversed course and have proposed doing the reviews only once every 10 years.

George Osborn of the California Sportfishing League spoke at the California Fish and Game Commission meeting in December to challenge this change in plans.

“As anglers know, the State of California designated over 800 square miles of the Pacific Ocean off limits to recreational fishing – in large part due to overfishing by the commercial fishing industry,” according to Osborn. “However, the State said these marine protected areas would be temporary and after five years, they would conduct a regional review to determine when they open to recreational angling once again.”

“Well.. that was then. Now, they want to extend this review process out another 5 years! Why? They don’t have the money,” he said.

In objecting to this move, Osborn asked, “When can recreational anglers again drop a line into an area now closed?”

“That’s not what the fishermen were told when the marine protected areas were adopted by the Commission,”added Osborn. “They are very disappointed in this change of plans.”

The Commission voted to notice the Master Plan for the February meeting, when it will be discussed. Then the Commission will act upon the plan in April.

“I’ve been told personally by commissioners who are no longer on the commission and commissioners still on the commission that so they couldn’t wait for the day to show the fishermen that the MPAs have worked and closed areas could be opened again to recreational fisherman,” he stated.

Osborn believes that this latest action confirms the suspicion of recreational anglers during the process that once the “marine protected areas” (MPAs) were put into place, the Commission and CDFW had no intention of opening them again.

The Initiative’s Master Plan was developed by the Department and adopted by the Commission, noted Osborn.

“The original plan provided for five year regional reviews of marine protected area. The new plan calls for only a statewide review every 10 years,” emphasized Osborn.

Commission’s executive director said five year reviews would be “huge workload” and “huge expense”

However, Sonke Mastrup, the Exective Director of the Commission, who recently resigned from his post after I interviewed him in December, claimed the Master Plan “is not really a new plan.”

“The Commission adopted a draft master plan around 2008 that was used to help build the network,” he explained. “Now that they’ve finished building the network, the plan has been redrafted to be an implementation plan for the existing network. We built them – now we have to refocus from the building to maintenance of the MPAs.”

“The question is what kind of maintenance will we do and how often do we have to check the status of how we are doing,” Mastrup noted. “The original draft plan was to review the MPAs every five years.”

“But we built the network not as one, but as four regions. If we reviewed each region every five years, we would be going through one of the four areas almost every year. It would be a huge workload and huge expense for the state,” he explained.

“When you talk to the scientists, you’ll find that recovery is a very slow process,” Mastrup said. “The reality is: How frequently are the reviews going to be so that we learn something that is actable by the commission?”

“There would have to be information to change it, based on cause or pursuant to need. I don’t foresee these MPAs changing quickly and there would have to be something sigificant for something to change an MPA, based on the goals and objectives of each region,” he noted.

For example, Mastrup said that if a marine protected area isn’t producing bigger fish, the scientists would have to ask: Why is it not producing?

“The MLPA contemplated that if particular MPAs are not doing what they’re supposed to do, then getting rid of them or modifying them would be options,” said Mastrup.