What's New

Plans are currently under way to establish more Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) off the coast of California.  Legislation passed in 1999 requires California develop a plan for establishing networks of MPAs in California waters to protect marine habitat and preserve ecosystem integrity. The state is reviewing plans for MPAs in each of California's coastal regions.

In December, the state established MPAs off the central coast of the state and theyare now looking to establish parks in the North Coast- Alder Creek (five miles north of Point Arena) to Pigeon Point area.
Click here to see a map of the region under review.

Brief Summary

A vigorous, multi-year campaign led by The Ocean Conservancy to establish a statewide network of marine protected areas (MPAs), in California, achieved a major milestone on August 15th. With a unanimous 5-0 vote, the California Fish and Game Commission approved a network of 29 MPAs covering over 200 square miles of state waters along California’s central coast. This plan, the first step in a master-plan for the entire coast, should receive final approval in early 2007 after environmental and regulatory review.

Over 100 years ago, Teddy Roosevelt revolutionized land conservation policy by creating national parks, forests and wilderness areas. Today, these lands and the concept behind them are considered one of America’s greatest legacies. Earlier this week, the California Fish and Game Commission took an action that was no less bold or historic by transforming how our oceans are managed. In voting to create a network of underwater marine protected areas along more than 200 miles of water between Santa Barbara and San Francisco, the Schwarzenegger administration took a significant first step to revive fish populations and productive habitats all along the central coast.

The concept of marine protected areas includes marine reserves, where no fishing is allowed, marine conservation areas (where some commercial and/or recreational fishing is permitted) and marine parks where only recreational fishing is permitted. The concept has been endorsed by thousands of scientists as the first step towards restoring the health and biodiversity of the oceans. Creating marine protected areas is a strategy urged by two national ocean commissions as a step toward ecosystem-based management of our oceans rather than the often failed results of managing individual species. In the U.S., we have established marine reserve networks in island locales like the Channel Islands (off of Santa Barbara), the Northwest Hawaiian Islands and the Florida Keys. What’s historic and unique about this week’s California decision is that it is the first time this bold idea has been applied to the U.S. shoreline, adjacent to millions of people and multiple port communities, and is the first time that a network of marine protected areas has been initiated throughout an entire state. It required a difficult balancing of political, economic and environmental complexities. The decision involved years of negations between scientists, fishermen, conservationists and government officials.

While the law calling for a master plan to designate marine reserves along the entire California coast passed in 1999, implementation languished for several years due to budget and staff shortages. The process was jump- started by newly elected Governor Schwarzenegger in late -2004 through a unique private-public partnership. What followed was a year of stakeholder meetings advised by science teams, followed by recommendations of a Governor-appointed Blue Ribbon Task Force. It culminated in a proposal by the Department of Fish and Game that was strengthened and approved by the State Fish and Game Commission.

The final package creates a network of 29 marine protected areas that comprise more than 200 square miles (about 18%) of state waters between Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz Counties. This will establish a model for additional protected areas to be established along the entire coast.

The Commission’s vote occurred at the end of a second 12-hr marathon public hearing, in Monterey, in a hotel conference room that earlier was filled with an audience of 400 people.

The California coast is a prime candidate for marine protected areas that scientists have recommended to reverse damage and depletion of ocean ecosystems. The state’s fishing fleet is half the size it was 25 years ago. Many species rockfish (also called red snapper) have populations that are less than 10% of their historic numbers, and are so depleted that the federal government declared the entire west coast rockfish fishery a federal disaster in 2000.

Studies show protected ocean areas harbor older and bigger fish that can produce up to 200 times as many fish as younger ones. These fish can, in turn, repopulate depleted species which migrate out to places where they can be harvested. Protecting the places fish need to feed and breed is like creating an endowment. We can live off the interest quite happily, but if we dip into the capital, as we have done time and again, we are living on borrowed time. Marine protected areas help rebuild the capital needed to sustain current and future generations of fishermen and break the cycle of boom and bust fisheries.