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Mark Gold’s blog: In Southern California, fishermen & environmentalists are strange adversaries

Posted by: Maven on June 6, 2009 at 6:27 am

From the Spouting Off blog, Heal the Bay president Mark Gold shares his thoughts after attending a Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting on the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA):

About 350 of the 400 people were sport or commercial fishermen. They were all wearing black, reminiscence of an afternoon in the Black Hole at a Raiders’ game. Many wore MLPA shirts on which the acronym was spelled out as “Means Less Public Access.” I have to give props to the fishermen for their passion and their numbers.

As the Blue Ribbon circus proceeded, I was struck by the fact that the fishermen should be our greatest allies on these issues. In Northern California, the fishing community has partnered with the environmental community to save the salmon. However, in Southern California, the fishing community has been conspicuously absent on such issues as power plant once through cooling, desalination, wetland preservation and restoration, sewage discharges and polluted runoff. The fishing community benefits dramatically by reducing pollution sources and reducing the extraction of ocean water. If the fishing community weighed in on these issues, they would be a powerful force.

The black shirts won yesterday by getting the Blue Ribbon task Force to kill the conservation proposal. The MLPA leadership flip-flopped on this issue a couple of times before the task force vote. The outcome didn’t upset me as much as the realization that the fishing and environmental communities were adversaries despite the fact that we both want healthy, clean and productive coastal marine waters and ecosystems.

More of Mark’s thoughts from the Spouting Off blog by clicking here.

June 6, 2009 · Filed Under Oceans & Beaches

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