danbacher
There’s the legal way to ensure transparency and then there is the made up, fake way, with lots of meetings, lots of talk, but little hearing and little caring. This is called “eventology,” where the value of participation is scored by the number of meetings and the number of people speaking.
Cutting Corners In Ocean Protection
That’s correct: Environmental groups actively sought to sidestep environmental law, which requires openness in analyzing negative environmental impacts of projects.
Usually, these groups fight to ensure complete compliance with CEQA — they repelled numerous legislative attacks by developers, and even Governor Schwarzenegger, already this year. But ironically, some have apparently decided CEQA doesn’t apply to projects they favor. Recently, the legally required CEQA review process got underway in Southern California in connection with adopting new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) under the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process. And many expected this scientific analysis to be completely transparent.
Instead, the Department of Fish and Game decided it didn’t need to hold an open “scoping” meeting. It didn’t need to allow other public agencies, special districts, or interested public the opportunity to discuss and share ideas surrounding the range of issues that must be covered in an Environmental Impact Report (those famous EIRs).
But fortunately, the law is clear; projects affecting the coastal zone are projects of statewide significance, and projects of statewide significance require at least one CEQA scoping meeting.
That’s why we and other fishing groups requested as much at the Fish and Game Commission meeting on June 23, 2010. However, commission members were not sympathetic and their lawyers didn’t seem to know the law.
Those of us who have been involved in creating these marine protected areas under the MLPA Initiative, the citizens who will be locked out of areas in the ocean where we have recreated, fished, and made a living for years, know from personal experience that “the most open and transparent process ever,” the one with “unprecedented transparency and stakeholder involvement” — is anything but.
Yes, there have been many meetings and yes, there’s a handpicked MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) to listen to the public and a MLPA Regional Stakeholders Group (RSG) to share ideas and concerns.
But we’ve all witnessed the shallowness of the task force discussions, and an absence of probing questions regarding legal or science guidance. We know of the private meetings that preceded changes to deliberation procedures and the closed door early morning meetings of the task force to review the day’s agenda.
We also know about the frantic two weeks of e-mails and phone calls last fall, trying to nail down a compromise network of marine protected areas in Southern California.
What’s more troubling is that we’re repeatedly told that the governor’s MLPA task force is exempt from state law. You know, the one requiring open meetings and advance notice, the one that prohibits private deal making.
The BRTF assists the Fish & Game Commission and passes its recommendations to the commission, a role that clearly makes the BRTF subject to state open meeting laws. But letters to the Commission for clarification of how the law applies are met with derision and ignored.
There’s the legal way to ensure transparency and then there is the made up, fake way, with lots of meetings, lots of talk, but little hearing and little caring. This is called “eventology,” where the value of participation is scored by the number of meetings and the number of people speaking.
One coalition of fishing groups has been seeking certain documents integral to the marine protected areas designation process. After months of being ignored by the Task Force and its private staff, the coalition finally went to court to get openness and transparency from the “most open and transparent process ever.”
Returning to the recent Fish & Game Commission meeting — fortunately, after reconsidering, its lawyers advised that a scoping meeting is required by law. But whether this marks a turning point in transparency and an end to backroom deals under MLPA Initiative, we’ll see.
danbacher 
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Tribes, Immigrants and Fishermen Unite Against MLPA
Assembly Speaker John Pérez Is on the Wrong Side of History
By Dan Bacher
In a historic protest on July 21, over 300 members of California Indian Tribes and their allies peacefully took control of a Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting in Fort Bragg to protest the violation of indigenous gathering and fishing rights under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s controversial MLPA Initiative.
Over 60 immigrant workers from the sea urchin industry, many from indigenous communities in central and southern Mexico that were forced to come to the U.S. after they were driven off their land under NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), marched side by side with members of the Yurok, Tolowa, Cahto, Kashia Pomo, Karuk, Hoopa Valley, Maidu, Hopi, Navajo and other tribes. Besides them were recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, seaweed harvesters, environmentalists and sea urchin divers and local political candidates.
Alongside tribal flags, participants hoisted banners with slogans including “Keep Away MLPA,” “Native Conservation, Not Naive Conservation,” “No MLPA,” “ MLPA=Big Oil,” and “RLF – What Are You Funding.” Many of the protesters wore blue shirts proclaiming, “M.L.P.A. Taking Tribal Rights Away.”
I have been to hundreds of protests on a variety of water and environmental justice issues, but it was simply the most moving event of its kind that I’ve ever been to. I was touched by the solidarity shown by people from such diverse communities in opposition to a process that that they feel is not listening to them or their needs.
Opponents of the MLPA Initiative believe that Schwarzenegger appointed MLPA officials have railroaded California Indian Tribes and fishing communities on the Central Coast, North Central Coast and South Coast – and now are trying to do it on the North Coast, but they have faced massive resistance there.
The group peacefully took over the task force meeting in a great example of non-violent direct action. After rallying at Oak and Main Street, over 300 people walked a half-mile to the C.V. Star Community Center. Just before heading into the meeting, tribal community members standing twenty deep chanted, “No Way M.L.P.A.!” to the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) members convened inside.
Tribal elders and immigrant workers then spoke on the impact of the MLPA process upon them. Some of the most powerful testimony came from Susan Burdick, Yurok Tribal gatherer, who slammed the Blue Ribbon Task Force members for violation of sovereign Tribal rights.
“We’re not going to stop what we have doing for generations,” said Burdick. “We have young people here, old people here and we will march everywhere you go.”
“What is your real purpose: to start drilling for oil off our coastline?” she asked. “Be honest with us!”
Elizabeth Palma, a worker in the sea urchin industry, told the panel how the MLPA threatened the livelihoods of immigrant workers. “By taking away our jobs by closing areas of coast, you are taking away the opportunity for our kids to go to college and make a better live for themselves,” she stated.
Thomas O’Rourke, the chair of the Yurok Tribal Council, vowed that tribal members would be willing to go to jail to defend their rights.
“It is wise to listen to the people who managed these lands for thousands of years,” he continued. “We believe in protecting species. We will continue to exercise our right to harvest seaweed and fish as we always have. You wlll have to take us to jail until you go broke and you fix this law.”
“Our tribal rights are not negotiable,” Dania Colegrove, Hoopa Valley Tribe member and a member of the Coastal Justice Coalition, told the task force. “Get used to it!”
Frankie Joe Myers, organizer for the Coastal Justice Coalition and a Yurok Tribal ceremonial leader, summed up the feelings of many when he said, “This is about more than a fouled-up process that attempts to prohibit tribes from doing something they have done sustainably for thousands of years. It is about respect, acknowledgement and recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights!”
When I got back from the protest, I was shocked to hear that Assembly Speaker John Perez, in spite of the massive opposition to MLPA Process from diverse communities, had recently sent a letter to the California Fish and Game Commission strongly endorsing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fast-track MLPA Initiative.
In his letter, Perez said he supports “the strongest possible network of marine protected areas based on science” along California’s southern Coast.
That is simply not true, since the MLPA as implemented on the Central North Central, South and North Coasts of California has completely taken oil drilling, water pollution, wave energy projects, corporate aquaculture, habitat destruction and all other human uses of the ocean off the table other than fishing and gathering.
“You have a historic opportunity to create a legacy for southern California’s oceans and generations to come,” stated Pérez. “ Please adopt the protections most likely to provide lasting benefits for all Californians by choosing the strongest possible option of Marine Protected Areas in southern California.”
However, the real “legacy” of the illegitimate process that John Pérez adamantly supports is the industrialization and privatization of California ocean and bay waters under an initiative privately funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation. This process has violated the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act, the California Public Records Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and other laws.
The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces, appointed by the worst Governor in California history to kick Tribal members, fishermen and seaweed harvesters of the water in fake “marine protected areas,” are dominated by oil industry, real estate, marina development and other corrupt corporate interests.
In fact, the “strongest possible option of Marine Protected Areas” that Perez gushes over was crafted under the leadership of Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association and the chair of the South Coast MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force, who has called for new oil drilling off the California coast. What kind of “protection” is that?
Perez’s increasingly friendly relationship with big oil companies is no secret. Pérez is the author of the “rigs to reef “legislation on behalf of the oil industry that saves them billions in the decommissioning of oil rigs off Southern California, so his strong support of oil industry supported “marine protected areas” that also insulate them from pesky environmental regulations should also come as no surprise.
In a post on the California Majority Report, Marcela Gutierrez, program manager of Wildcoast, spoke up for the MLPA and for Perez’s record, stating, “Speaker John Pérez has a strong and consistent record showing his commitment to social and environmental justice.”
“Suffice it to reference his work on AB 890, the law passed last fall to address chronic pollution (manganese) to the City of Maywood’s water supply. Championing a solution to the oft-ignored problem that plagues Maywood’s mostly working-class and immigrant community is hardly the hallmark of a ‘corporate green-washer.’”
I roundly applaud Pérez’s work on AB 890, legislation that I strongly support. However, that doesn’t excuse Pérez from supporting the MLPA Initiative, a widely-criticized process that has united a diverse group of Indian Tribes, fishermen, immigrant workers, environmental justice advocates, conservationists, cities and coastal communities against it.
By supporting the MLPA Initiative, Pérez is on the wrong side of history. If he truly cares about environmental justice and his legacy, he should use his power to convene a legislative oversight hearing to investigate the conflicts of interest, total disregard for indigenous fishing and gathering rights, violation of numerous state and federal laws and greenwashing that have plagued the MLPA Initiative since Schwarzenegger privatized it in 2004. Further, he should call upon the Governor to immediately suspend the MLPA process until this hearing is conducted.
People who care about true ocean protection, rather than the fake “protection” provided under the MLPA, should oppose corporate greenwashing and institutional racism, whether it’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Assembly Speaker John Pérez, or any other politician who is supporting it.
For more information about the Coastal Justice Coalition’s battle against the MLPA’s violation of indigeous rights, go to:http://www.klamathjustice.blogspot.com.
danbacher | by Dan Bacher
The No on 18 Campaign on Tuesday announced its release of a public service announcement featuring Hollywood actors united against Proposition 18, the $11.14 billion pork-laden water bond backed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. The controversial bond remains on this November’s ballot, in spite of attempts by Schwarzenegger and Steinberg to delay the bond until 2012 because of the public’s lack of support for this taxpayer bailout for corporate agribusiness and southern California water agencies. The PSA features such actors as David DeLuise, from “Wizards of Waverly Place” and son of Dom DeLuise; Justine Bateman, from “Family Ties,” “Californication” and “Desperate Housewives;” Kelly Williams, from “Lie to Me,” “The Practice” and “Scrubs”; Anna Belknap, from “CSI: NY.” “The 60-second spot points out the bond will cost Californians $22 billion over the next 30 years in addition to the attempt by the legislators to postpone the measure until 2012,” according to a news release from the No on 18 Campaign. “It also calls on voters to contact their local legislator and demand they scrap the bond altogether and start working on real solutions that truly address the water needs of the State.” The bond creates the infrastructure to build a peripheral canal and new dams that would likely lead to the extinction of collapsing populations of Delta and longfin smelt, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon, southern resident killer whales and other species. The peripheral canal would cost an estimated $23 billion to $53.8 billion at a time when California is in its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. “We support keeping water publicly owned, pure, accessible and drinkable, straight from the tap,” said John Lehr, one of the creators. “Proposition 18 is a massive waste of money and won’t help California’s future water needs.” Lehr, creator of the improvisational comedy series “10 Items or Less,” joined forces with Nancy Hower to craft this video. The duo has collaborated on numerous video projects and is currently producing a pilot for Comedy Central, according to the No on 18 Campaign. Despite what many are saying, the water bond has yet to be either postponed or repealed. “Legislators have talked about postponing this ridiculous bond until 2012, hoping voters will forget the measure came together during back-room deals adding billions of dollars of pork projects and that it does very little to solve California’s water needs,” said Elanor Starmer of Food & Water Watch. “The state is staring down the barrel at an already outrageous deficit. Taking on an additional $22 billion would be irresponsible and we can’t afford it; not now, not ever,” Starmer stated. To view the video, visit http://nowaterbond.com/spit. No on Proposition 18 is a coalition of consumer, education, environmental, fishing, farming, tribal, community and social justice organizations opposed to the water bond that will be on the statewide ballot in November. Coalition members include the Sierra Club California, Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Friends of the River, Food & Water Watch, the Planning and Conservation League, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, California Sea Urchin Commission, Clean Water Action, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Southern California Watershed Alliance, Restore the Delta, Winnemem Wintu Tribe and Urban Semillas. Proposition 18 is yet one more attempt by the Governor and the Legislative “leadership “to privatize water and other public trust resources in California. It amounts to corporate welfare for water barons such as Stewart Resnick, the owner of the giant Paramount Farms, who has made millions and millions of dollars in profits off selling subsidized water back to the state. Assembly Speaker Endorses Governor’s MLPA Initiative Proposition 18 must be seen in the larger context of the campaign by the Governor and the Legislature to industrialize our the ocean, bay and inland waters. The Governor and Assembly Speaker John Perez are currently promoting the fast-track Marine Life Protection (MLPA) Initiative, a privately funded process to create so-called “marine protected areas” on the California coast. The MLPA officials have railroaded California Indian Tribes and fishing communities on the Central Coast, North Central Coast and South Coast – and now are trying to do it on the North Coast, but they have faced massive resistance there. In a letter to the California Fish and Game Commission, Perez says he supports “the strongest possible network of marine protected areas based on science” along California’s southern Coast. That is a complete and total lie, since the process has completely taken oil drilling, water pollution, wave energy projects, corporate aquaculture, habitat destruction and all other human uses of the ocean off the table other than fishing and gathering. “You have a historic opportunity to create a legacy for southern California’s oceans and generations to come … Please adopt the protections most likely to provide lasting benefits for all Californians by choosing the strongest possible option of Marine Protected Areas in southern California,” said Perez. However, the real “legacy” of the illegitimate process that John Perez adamantly supports is the industrialization and privatization of California ocean and bay waters under an initiative privately funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation. This illegal process has violated the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act, the California Public Records Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People and other laws. The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces, appointed by the worst Governor in California history to kick Tribal members, fishermen and seaweed harvesters of the water in fake “marine protected areas,” are dominated by oil industry, real estate, marina development and other corrupt corporate interests. In fact, the “strongest possible option of Marine Protected Areas” that Perez gushes over was crafted under the leadership of Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association and the chair of the South Coast MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force, who has called for new oil drilling off the California coast. As Susan Burdick, Yurok Elder, told the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force in Fort Bragg when over 300 Tribal members and their allies in a historic protest took control of a meeting on July 21, “You are like the Ku Klux Klan – without the hoods! We’re not going to stop what we have doing for generations. We have young people here, old people here and we will march everywhere you go.” “What is your real purpose: to start drilling for oil off our coastline?” she asked. “Be honest with us!” Perez’s friendly relationship with big oil companies is no secret. Perez is the author of the “rigs to reef “legislation on behalf of the oil industry that saves them billions in the decommissioning of oil rigs off Southern California, so his strong support of oil industry supported “marine protected areas” that also insulate them from pesky environmental regulations should also come as no surprise. Whether it’s the water bond, the peripheral canal or the corrupt MLPA process, Tribal members, fishermen, seafood industry workers, environmentalists, family farmers and others will resist the drive to privatize our public trust resources. We must relentlessly expose corporate greenwashing and racism, whether it is promoted by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Assembly Speaker John Perez, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg or their “environmental” NGO collaborators. For more information about the Coastal Justice Coalition’s battle against the MLPA’s violation of indigeous rights, go to: http://www.klamathjustice.blogspot.com. |
danbacher
Susan Burdick, Yurok Elder, pointedly told the Blue Ribbon Task Force that “You are like the Ku Klux Klan – without the hoods! We’re not going to stop what we have doing for generations. We have young people here, old people here and we will march everywhere you go.”
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By Dan Bacher
In a historic protest on July 21, members of dozens of California Indian Tribes and their allies marched through the streets of downtown Fort Bragg protesting the violation of indigenous fishing and gathering rights under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
“This is the biggest protest on any issue held on the North Coast since the Redwood Summer of 1990,” said Dan Hamburg, former North Coast Congressman and a current Green Party candidate for Mendocino County Supervisor, as he marched beside me on the way to the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting in Fort Bragg.
Members of the Yurok, Tolowa, Cahto, Kashia Pomo, Karuk, Hoopa Valley, Maidu, Hopi, Navajo and other tribes and the Noyo Indian Community shouted “M.L.P.A. – Taking Tribal Rights Away” and other chants as they marched. Recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, seaweed harvesters, environmentalists, sea urchin divers and seafood industry workers walked side by side with tribal members in a show of solidarity.
Alongside tribal flags, participants hoisted banners with slogans including “Keep Away MLPA,” “Native Conservation, Not Naive Conservation,” “No MLPA,” “ MLPA=Big Oil,” and “RLF – What Are You Funding.”
The group peacefully took control of the task force meeting in a great example of non-violent direct action. After rallying at Oak and Main Street, over 300 people walked a half-mile to the C.V. Star Community Center. Just before heading into the meeting, tribal community members standing twenty deep chanted, “No Way M.L.P.A.!” to the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) members convened inside.
“Our message was clear: the state will no longer impose its will on indigenous people,” said Frankie Joe Myers, organizer for the Coastal Justice Coalition and a Yurok Tribal ceremonial leader. “This is about more than a fouled-up process that attempts to prohibit tribes from doing something they have done sustainably for thousands of years. It is about respect, acknowledgement and recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights!”
Before the group began their march, they spent an hour holding signs and chanting on the corner of Oak and Main Streets as driver after driver honked their horns in support.
“The outpouring of support from the Fort Bragg community was amazing,” said Jim Martin, West Coast Director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance. “It was clear that the majority of people supported our protest. Some people were driving around several times so they could honk in support again.”
After the protesters entered the meeting, tribal elders, including Walt Lara of the Yurok Tribe, said they would continue to do what they have done for centuries – harvest seaweed, mussels and fish.
“We’ve managed the ocean in sustainable way for thousands of years,” Lara stated. “We only take what we need so that nobody should be hungry. You take our water, you take our land and now your are going to take our appetite.”
Thomas O’Rourke, the chair of the Yurok Tribal Council, said, “We as an Indian Nation have the right to manage our resources. The people who have managed for the last 200 years haven’t done so well in managing the land and our coast.”
“It is wise to listen to the people who managed these lands for thousands of years,” he continued. “We believe in protecting species. We will continue to exercise our right to harvest seaweed and fish as we always have. You have to take us to jail until you go broke and you fix this law.”
The Yurok Tribe has a representative, Megan Rocha, on the MLPA’s Regional Stakeholder group. However, O’Rourke said the MLPA process has viewed tribes exactly the same as recreational fishermen, even though tribes are sovereign nations.
“There is nothing more offensive than the lack of recognition we have received from the Initiative,” he stated. “We are a sovereign government within the State of California and should be treated accordingly. We would like the Blue Ribbon Task Force to do what is morally right and remove tribes from this inappropriate process.”
Jimbo Simmons, a Choctaw Tribe member and a leader of the American Indian Movement, emphasized that numerous laws, including the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and the UN Declaration of Human Rights, affirm the right of indigenous people to conduct their traditional religious ceremonies including traditional ocean food gathering. “Food is a human right,” he stated.
“Our tribal rights are not negotiable,” Dania Colegrove, Hoopa Valley Tribe member and a member of the Coastal Justice Coalition, told the task force. “Get used to it!”
Some Tribal members and fishermen at the protest questioned the task force’s real motives in kicking indigenous people and other fishermen off the ocean.
Susan Burdick, Yurok Elder, pointedly told the Blue Ribbon Task Force that “You are like the Ku Klux Klan – without the hoods! We’re not going to stop what we have doing for generations. We have young people here, old people here and we will march everywhere you go.”
“What is your real purpose: to start drilling for oil off our coastline?” she asked. “Be honest with us!”
Burdick’s concerns over the push by the oil industry and others to industrialize the California coast were echoed by environmentalists including Judith Vidaver, Chair of Ocean Protection Coalition (OPC).
“For over 25 years OPC, with our fisher and seaweed harvester allies, has protected our ocean from threats such as aquaculture projects, nuclear waste dumping, offshore oil development and recently, wave power plants,” Vidaver stated. “We are requesting that final Marine Protected Area (MPA) designations include language prohibiting these industrial-scale commercial activities.”
She also shocked the panel by asking that task force member Catherine Reheis-Boyd voluntarily step down from her position on the BRTF.
“Oil and water do not mix—as we are being reminded daily by the disaster spewing in the Gulf,” she stated. “Mrs. Reheis-Boyd’s position as President of the Western States Petroleum Association and her lobbying efforts to expand offshore oil drilling off the coast of California are a patent conflict of interest for which she should recuse herself from the BRTF proceedings which are ostensibly meant to protect the marine ecosystem.”
Meg Caldwell, a BRTF member, responded to Vidaver’s request in defense of Reheis-Boyd.
“I am a died-in-the-wool environmentalist and I have worked with Reheis-Boyd on the Blue Ribbon Task Force. Not once has she demonstrated any bias for any industrial sector,” she stated.
The overwhelming majority of people making public comments criticized the MLPA process for any array of reasons.
However, Karen Garrison, policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and several others affirmed their support for the MLPA Initative. Garrison said that her organization “is committed to creating an effective marine protected area network that also supports continued noncommercial traditional Tribal uses.”
“The Kashia Pomo regulation shows it’s possible to do both, at least under some circumstances, and shows the flexibility of the MLPA to accommodate Tribal uses,” Garrison stated. “We also support the Tribe’s proposal to separately identify noncommercial traditional Tribal uses in any regulation that allows both Tribal and recreational uses.”
The MLPA, a landmark law signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999, calls for the creation of marine reserves with varying levels of protection from one end of the state to the other.
Many fishermen, environmentalists and Tribal members have blasted Schwarzenegger’s MLPA Initiative, privately funded by the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, for taking water pollution, oil drilling and all other human uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table while denying Tribes their fundamental rights.
“Whether it is their intention or not, what the Marine Life Protection Act does to tribes is systematically decimate our ability to be who we are,” Myers said. “That is the definition of cultural genocide.”
“The MLPA process completely disregards tribal gathering rights and only permits discussion of commercial and recreational harvest,” Myers concluded. “The whole process is inherently flawed by institutionalized racism. It doesn’t recognize Tribes as political entities, or Tribal biologists as legitimate scientists.”
“The protest surpassed my wildest dreams,” said Mike Carpenter, a sea urchin diver and local protest organizer. “I’m glad that tribal members, fishermen, Latino sea urchin industry workers and local environmentalists all banded together to keep our communities from being robbed by outside interests and big corporate money.”
The latest action was preceded on June 29 by a protest during which a group of 40 Tribal members and their supporters interrupted the MLPA Science Advisory Team meeting in Eureka. Members of the Coastal Justice Coalition during both protests emphasized that there is no scientific data that says tribal gathering has any negative impact on the coastal ecosystem and the Act does nothing to stop pollution and off-shore drilling — the real threats to the ocean ecosystem.
For more information, go to: http://www.klamathjustice.blogspot.com
danbacher 
Coastal Justice Coalition
For Immediate Release: July 21, 2010
Contacts:
Georgiana Myers, Coastal Justice Coalition: (707) 951-5548, sregonlady [at] yahoo.com
Frankie Myers, Klamath Justice Coalition: (707) 951-5052, frankiemyers [at] hotmail.com
Dozens of California tribes stand together to protect rights
More than 50 tribal nations peacefully took control of the Marine Life Protection Act’s Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting in California Wednesday. Their message: The state will no longer impose its will on indigenous people.
“This is about more than a fouled-up process that attempts to prohibit tribes from doing something they have done sustainably for thousands of years,” said Frankie Joe Myers, a Yurok tribal citizen and organizer for the Coastal Justice Coalition. “It is about respect, acknowledgement and recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights.”
The group of more than 300 met up at 11a.m. on the Main Street of Fort Bragg, CA. and hiked up a half mile to the C.V. Star Community Center with a unified voice pulsing M-L-P-A Taking Tribal Rights Away! Just before heading into the meeting tribal community members standing twenty deep chanted “No Way M.L.P.A.!” to the Blue Ribbon Task Force Members waiting inside.
“The Blue Ribbon Task Force had given us no indication that they were listening to North Coast Tribes’ call to respect our sovereignty,” Dania Rose Colegrove, a Hoopa tribal citizen. “We felt that we needed show them a small symbol of what we are willing to do to pass on our culture to future generations. “
The Marine Life Protection Act Initiative is a public and privately funded partnership between the State of California and a few deep-pocketed foundations — chiefly the Resources Legacy Fund to — implement the Marine Life Protection Act, which was signed into law in 1999. That Act calls for the creation of marine reserves with varying levels of protection from one end of the state to the other.
The Blue Ribbon Task Force is charged with making recommendations to the California Fish and Game Commission of where to put the protected areas. To date, the Task Force has said it will view traditional tribal gatherers in the same light as recreational fishermen, which largely offensive to tribal people.
Citizens from tribal nations as far away as the Choktaw Nation attended the meeting to stand in solidarity with the North California Tribes. Many pointed out the absurdity and pain caused by asking Native Americans to give up something else.
“Whether it is their intention or not, what the Marine Life Protection Act does to tribes is it systematically decimates our ability to be who we are,” Myers said. “That is the definition cultural genocide.”
Coastal indigenous people collect mussels, seaweed and other ocean resources for sustenance and ceremonial regalia. All of these resources were abundant until Europeans commercialized them.
“We should have had better immigration laws,” tribal citizen and Air Force Veteran Wally Obie said. “That’s not funny.”
This is the second time indigenous Californian’s have halted Marine Life Protection Act Initiative meeting. On June 29, a smaller group interrupted the MLPAI’s Science Advisory Team meeting in Eureka. Members of the Coastal Justice Coalition pointed out that there is no scientific data that says tribal gathering has any negative impact on the coastal ecosystem and the Act does nothing to stop pollution and off-shore drilling — the real threats to the ocean’s productivity.
The Coastal Justice Coalition is a group of concerned tribal citizens and community members who came together to make sure indigenous peoples’ right to gather on the coast is respected.
danbacher I went to a fantastic protest in Fort Bragg against Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s MLPA (Marine Life Protection Act) Initiative yesterday. Hundreds of Tribal members from throughout throughout northern California and the southwest, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, seaweed harvesters, environmentalists, sea urchin divers and seafood industry workers marched with banners and signs through the streets of Fort Bragg and chanted “MLPA, Taking Tribal Rights Away” as they converged on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting at the C.V. Starr Center.
More than 50 tribal nations peacefully took control of the task force meeting. Their message was clear: the state will no longer impose its will on indigenous people. Members of the Yurok, Tolowa, Cahto, Pomo, Karuk, Hoopa Valley, Maidu, Hopi, Navajo and other tribes and the Noyo Indian Community spoke to the task force members.
Tribal elders including Walt Lara of the Yurok Tribe said they would continue to do what they have done for thousands of years regardless of what the state decides. Another Yurok elder, Susan Burdick, described the MLPA task force as “like the Ku Klux Klan – without the hoods!”
Judy Vidaver, head of the Ocean Protection Coalition, a well-respected environmental group in Mendocino County, asked Catherine Reheis-Boyd, an oil industry lobbyist and the chair of the South Coast MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force and a member of the North Coast Task Force, to resign over her conflicts of interest.
Below are yesterday’s press releases about the protest issued by the Yurok Tribe and Coastal Justice Coalition.
Photo of protest inside MLPA meeting by Matt Mais, Yurok Tribe.
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For Immediate Release
Contact Matt Mais
(707) 482-1350 ext. 306
Cell: (707) 954-0976
CA attempts to trample Tribal Rights
Tribes fight back, vow to never stop gathering in their homeland
The Yurok Tribe will never stop sustainably gathering coastal resources as it has done for thousands of years. Neither the Marine Life Protection Act nor any other law can take away what the Creator has bestowed on the Yurok Tribe.
That is the consensus of the Yurok Tribal Council, which added its voice to the chorus of California tribes opposing the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative today at the Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting in Fort Bragg, Ca.
“The Initiative is a misguided attempt by the state to stomp on tribal rights,” said Thomas O’Rourke Sr., Chairman for the Yurok Tribe, the largest tribe in the state. “Our rights are non-negotiable.”
The Marine Life Protection Act Initiative is a public and privately funded partnership between the State of California and a few private foundations to implement the Marine Life Protection Act, which was signed into law in 1999. That Act calls for the creation of marine reserves with varying levels of protection from one end of the state to the other. The Blue Ribbon Task Force is charged with making recommendations of where the reserves will end up.
The Yurok Tribe, a federally recognized tribe, does not believe California has any reason to infringe on the tribe’s ability to gather in its ancestral territory.
“We would like the Blue Ribbon Task Force to do what is morally right and remove tribes from this inappropriate process,” Chairman O’Rourke Sr. said.
The Yurok Tribe has a representative on the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative’s Regional Stakeholder group, however the Marine Life Protection Act process has viewed tribes exactly the same as recreational fishermen.
“There is nothing more offensive than the lack of recognition we have received from the Initiative. We are a sovereign government within the State of California and should be treated accordingly,” Chairman O’Rourke Sr. said.
Yurok people gather mussels, seaweed and shells for sustenance and religious purposes. The Tribe gathers other ocean resources as well. The Tribe has always gone to great lengths to ensure that that marine resources are well-kept and maintained for future generations.
This is not the first time indigenous Californians have voiced strong opposition to Marine Life Protection Act Initiative’s offensive reach into Indian Country. Members from several Tribes interrupted the MLPAI’s Science Advisory Team meeting in Eureka earlier on June 29. The tribal people pointed out that there is no scientific data that says tribal gathering has any negative impact on the coastal ecosystem and the Act does nothing to stop pollution and off-shore drilling — the real threats to the ocean’s productivity.
The Yurok has 5,500 members. Its ancestral territory reaches from Wilson Creek to the Little River in Northern California. For more information about the Yurok Tribe, please visit yuroktribe.org.
Coastal Justice Coalition
For Immediate Release: July 21, 2010
Contacts:
Georgiana Myers, Coastal Justice Coalition: (707) 951-5548, sregonlady [at] yahoo.com
Frankie Myers, Klamath Justice Coalition: (707) 951-5052, frankiemyers [at] hotmail.com
California Tribes and Allies March to Protect Ocean Resources and Tribal Rights
Who: Coastal Tribes and allies
What: March to protect Tribal Rights and ocean resources
When: March starts 12pm, July 21, 2010
Where: March meets at Main and Oak St. in Fort Bragg, continues to CV Star Community Center where participants can give public comment at the MLPA meeting.
California coastal Tribes and their allies are marching to the Marine Life Protection Act’s (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force Meeting on Wednesday afternoon July 21st, 2010 in Fort Bragg, CA to defend traditional gathering rights on California’s coastline.
“In our view the MLPA is another attack on tribal rights and sovereignty. So we feel we must defend our rights through non-violent direct action when necessary,” said Dania Rose Colegrove, a Hoopa Tribal member and Coastal Justice Coalition (CJC) activist.
The Coastal Justice Coalition (CJC), a branch of the Klamath Justice Coalition, is an activist group comprised of tribal people and interested community members concerned with social and environmental issues along the Pacific coast. The CJC believes that the MLPA initiative will have negative impacts on traditional subsistence gathering along the Pacific coast. Some tribal members have taken the position that regardless of the outcome of the MLPA process they will continue to gather, a position that the CJC fully supports and encourages.
“The MLPA process completely disregards tribal gathering rights and only permits discussion of commercial and recreational harvest. The whole process is inherently flawed by institutionalized racism. It doesn’t recognize Tribes as political entities, or Tribal biologists as legitimate scientists,” said Frankie Myers, Yurok Tribal member and CJC activist.
Background Information:
The MLPA, passed by the Legislature and signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999, is very broad in scope. The law was intended to not only restrict or prohibit fishing in a network of “marine protected areas,” but to address other “human uses” and “extractive activities” including coastal development and water pollution.
The Schwarzenegger administration has taken all other “human uses” and “extractive activities” other than fishing and seaweed harvesting off the table in the implementation of the MLPA process. The MLPA initiative does nothing to stop water pollution, oil drilling, and wave energy projects or other activities from destroying fish and other marine life populations in California’s coastal waters.
Schwarzenegger has appointed oil industry, marina development, real estate and other corporate interests with numerous conflicts of interest to the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces. Many MLPA Initiative critics believe that Schwarzenegger has appointed these corporate operatives to these task forces to remove fishermen and Indian Tribal members, the staunchest supporters of true ocean protection, from their fishing and gathering grounds to pave the way for ocean industrialization and privatization.
Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, is chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast and now serves on the MLPA panel for the North Coast. In spite of the environmental and economic devastation caused by the BP Oil Gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, she has called for new oil drilling off the California coast.
For more information and video
Website:
http://www.klamathjustice.blogspot.com
Klamath Media Video on Youtube.com:
6.29.10 California Tribes Protest MLPA Science Meeting
http://www.youtube.com/user/klamathmedia#p/a/u/0/Qcox-tHsJNw
Times Standard Article
Native American groups protest MLPA Scientific Advisory Committee
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_15408043
The Global Realm Article
Blaming the Tribes, Greenwashing Big Oil
http://theglobalrealm.com/2010/07/18/blaming-the-tribes-greenwashing-big-oil/
Should Oil Lobbyists Write and Implement California’s Environmental Laws?
http://yubanet.com/cal
danbacher by Dan Bacher
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today used President Barack Obama’s signing of an executive order to establish a national policy for the “stewardship” of the ocean and Great Lakes as a cynical opportunity to greenwash the Governor’s failed environmental policies.
This is the same Governor who has presided over the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley Chinook salmon and steelhead, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and southern resident killer whales by allowing corporate agribusiness and southern California to export record amounts of water from the California Delta in recent years.
This is also the same Governor who has fast-tracked his Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, a widely-contested process that scapegoats California Indian Tribes for fishery declines caused by decades of the state’s reckless mismanagement, to greenwash his environmental “legacy.”
“I’m pleased the White House has continued to focus attention on protecting our nation’s coasts and oceans,” Schwarzenegger gushed. “The Deepwater Horizon spill has emphasized what a vital role our oceans play in our environment, economy and overall well-being. California has long demonstrated leadership with ocean and coastal protection and we stand ready to continue assisting President Obama at all levels of government to ensure that we safeguard our treasured natural resources.”
In a statement, Schwarzenegger claimed that California under his administration has become a “national leader” in ocean “protection,” citing his creation of an Ocean Action Plan.
“In 2004, the Governor unveiled his Ocean Action Plan that set a national standard for the management of ocean and coastal resources, created the first Cabinet-level Ocean Protection Council in the nation and signed legislation increasing ocean protection, including limits on trawl-net fishing and water quality testing,” according to the Governor’s Office. “California also adopted the country’s strictest rules on cruise ship dumping – standards that have since been expanded to cargo ships.”
Schwarzenegger also touted the West Coast Governor’s Agreement on Ocean Health as another example of his “leadership” in ocean management.
“In 2006, the Governor joined with the Governors of Washington and Oregon to form the West Coast Governors’ Agreement On Ocean Health to protect not just California’s shores, but the entire West Coast,” the statement continued. “The Action Plan, released in 2008, outlines how the states can work together and with federal authorities to improve our ocean in seven priority areas. It includes 26 specific actions to help combat polluted runoff and reduce marine garbage, advocate for stricter vessel emission standards, prevent invasive species, oppose new offshore oil and gas development and explore alternatives, improve ocean research, and increase ocean education, among others.”
However, Schwarzenegger failed to mention the “crown jewel” of his ocean policy – his MLPA Initiative, a deplorable case of corporate greenwashing that has been criticized by fishermen, Indian Tribes, conservationists, environmental justice advocates, coastal communities and Californians from a wide variety of political perspectives.
The Marine Life Protection Act, a law signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999, has been eviscerated and corrupted under the Schwarzengger administration. Rather than actually protect the oceans, Schwarzenegger’s privately funded MLPA Initiative has completely taken pollution, oil drilling, wave energy projects, corporate aquaculture, habitat destruction and other human uses of the ocean other than fishing and seaweed gathering off the table.
Schwarzenegger has appointed oil industry, marina development, real estate and other corporate operatives with numerous conflicts of interest to the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces. Many MLPA Initiative critics believe that Schwarzenegger has appointed these corporate representatives to these task forces to remove fishermen and Indian Tribal members, the staunchest supporters of true ocean protection, from their fishing and gathering grounds to pave the way for ocean industrialization and privatization.
In fact, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, is chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast and now serves on the MLPA panel for the North Coast. Incredibly, this “marine guardian,” in spite of the environmental and economic devastation caused by the BP Oil Gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, has called for new oil drilling off the California coast!
In a call to action the same day that Schwarzenegger gushed about his “leadership” in ocean management, the Coastal Justice Coalition (CJC), a branch of the Klamath Justice Coalition, issued a call to action to come to a protest in Fort Bragg against the MLPA on July 21. CJC is an activist group comprised of tribal people and interested community members concerned with social /environmental issues along the Pacific coast.
“The CJC is very concerned with the impacts that the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) has on tribal gathering along the Pacific coast,” according to Frankie Myers, Coastal Justice Coalition member and Yurok Tribe ceremonial leader. “Some tribal members have taken the position that regardless of the outcome of the MLPA process they will continue to gather, a position that the CJC fully supports and encourages.”
“The MLPA, in our view, is another attack on tribal rights and sovereignty,” Myers said. “Therefore, we feel we must defend our rights and our lands through non-violent direct action. The MLPA process completely disregards tribal gathering rights and only permits discussion of commercial and recreational harvest. Our voice has not been heard; therefore, we feel we must stand and make our message be heard.”
“The next Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting is where we take our stand,” he stated. “If your way of life is being targeted for MLPA restrictions, meet us at 11:30 AM at the corner of Oak and Main St. in Fort Bragg on Wednesday, July 21st, to protest. We are joining forces with other non-tribal groups that are also being affected and feel it is an injustice to stop tribal gathering. This is an attack that has already affected too many tribal people.”
To show solidarity, blue t-shirts will be handed out to be worn during the protest. “There will be an action for those who want to express a stronger message,” said Myers.
Limited transportation is available from the Humboldt-Del Norte area. For more information, please contact Frankie Myers at (707) 951-5052 or Georgiana K Myers at work #: 707-482-1350 ext. 302 or cell #: 707-951-5548.
danbacher | Here is the action alert from Georgiana K Myers of the Coastal Justice Coalition about the big demonstration against the MLPA Initiative on July 21 in Fort Bragg.I hope to see you there!
Thanks Aiy-yu-kwee’ PLEASE READ BELOW FOR MORE INFORMATION!!!! Call to Action: Protest Against MLPA Coastal Justice Coalition The Coastal Justice Coalition (CJC), a branch of the Klamath Justice Coalition, is an activist group comprised of tribal people and interested community members concerned with social /environmental issues along the Pacific coast. The CJC is very concerned with the impacts that the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) has on tribal gathering along the Pacific coast. Some tribal members have taken the position that regardless of the outcome of the MLPA process they will continue to gather, a position that the CJC fully supports and encourages. The MLPA, in our view, is another attack on tribal rights and sovereignty. Therefore, we feel we must defend our rights and our lands through non-violent direct action. The MLPA process completely disregards tribal gathering rights and only permits discussion of commercial and recreational harvest. Our voice has not been heard; therefore, we feel we must stand and make our message be heard. The next Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting is where we take our stand. If your way of life is being targeted for MLPA restrictions, meet us at 11:30 AM at the corner of Oak and Main St. in Fort Bragg on Wednesday, July 21st, to protest. We are joining forces with other non-tribal groups that are also being affected and feel it is an injustice to stop tribal gathering. This is an attack that has already affected too many tribal people. To show solidarity, blue t-shirts will be handed out to be worn during the protest. There will be an action for those who want to express a stronger message. Limited transportation is available from the Humboldt-Del Norte area. For more information, please contact Frankie Myers at (707) 951-5052 or Georgiana K. Myers at work #: 707-482-1350 ext. 302 or cell #: 707-951-5548. |
danbacher by Dan Bacher
A “protection racket” is when a tough-looking thug from the Mafia or a gang visits your home or business and asks for a contribution to insure and protect you from injury and harm. If you are really naive, you may ask, “Protect me from what?”
Like a Mafia “enforcer,” Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fast-track Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, a process overseen by corrupt oil industry, marina development, real estate and other corporate interests, is coming to Fort Bragg on July 21.
MLPA officials, chosen by Schwarzenegger to greenwash his abysmal environmental legacy, are asking North Coast fishermen, Indian Tribal members, divers, seaweed harvesters and coastal communities to make “contributions” in the interest of protecting us from unspecified damage and injuries to our coast.
Although proponents of the MLPA fiasco claim that these closures are based on “science,” the current North Coast marine reserve proposals have no basis in science.
None of the proposals under consideration for so-called Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) on the North Coast provide any significant increase in biomass or contribution to the sustainable yield of our local fisheries, according to the MLPA Science Advisory Team’s evaluations of these proposals.
Meanwhile, all of the proposals have very significant social and economic impacts to the local economy – up to 16% economic loss to local fisheries, according to the same evaluations. According to the best available science, the conservation benefits of MPAs are highly uncertain, while the economic impacts are real and documentable.
So what are these fake marine reserves “protecting us” from?
In reality the marine reserves have nothing to do with real marine protection, since the original Marine Life Protection Act, a law signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999, has been eviscerated under the Schwarzenegger administration. The MLPA Initiative under Schwarzenegger has taken water pollution, deep water oil drilling, wave energy projects, habitat destruction and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing off the table.
The MLPA is an absurd parody of real protection, since it would do nothing to stop deep water oil drilling off the California. In fact, many believe that it would actually pave the way to offshore drilling.
It is no coincidence that Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA, is the chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast and now sits on the task force for the North Coast. In spite of the unprecedented environmental and human catastrophe that has resulted from the BP Oil Gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, Reheis-Boyd has repeatedly called for new offshore oil drilling off the California coast.
Are you sick and tired of corporate operatives and government bureacrats coming into town, like Mafia enforcers, to tell fishermen, Indian Tribal members and real environmentalists about how they must support corporate-backed plans to “protect the ocean?
Are you sick and tired of a private corporation, the shadowy Resources Legacy Foundation, funding this elitist and racist process that openly violates numerous state, federal and international laws, including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People?
Then come to a rally to protest MLPA ocean privatization and to support fisheries on Wednesday, July 21, noon at the southeast corner of Oak and Main Streets in Fort Bragg, CA.
The purpose of the rally is to increase the visibility of the Coastal Fishing communities, Businesses, Indian Tribes and Tribal Communities that are being impacted by MLPA regulations, and make the public aware of the issue. Please respect local residents – we need their support! Do not block traffic or public thoroughfares. Bring a lunch and something to share if possible. Bring signs, banners and flags.
The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) meeting is being held in Fort Bragg on July 21 and 22. They are scheduled to break for lunch at 12:45, so rally participants will proceed to that location a little after 1 p.m.
Parking: From Main St., turn west on Oak St. and use the parking lot. There is an empty lot at the SE corner of Oak & Main, where rally participants will assemble. There is plenty of room for banners, signs and tables.
You can provide public testimony to the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force, at the C. V. Starr Aquatic Center, 300 South Lincoln St., during the open public comment period at 4 p.m.
I also urge you to watch the superb video, produced by Stormy Staats of the Klamath-Salmon Media Collective, that covers the protest by the Coastal Justice Coalition at the MLPA meeting in Eureka on June 29. Members of the Yurok, Hoopa Valley, Karuk, Tolowa, Cahto and other Tribes interrupted an MLPA Science Advisory Team meeting with chants of, “MLPA, Taking Tribal Rights Away!”
You can view the video on Youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/user/klamathmedia#p/a/u/0/Qcox-tHsJN.
You can expect similar testimony to be provided at the July 21 Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting. Agendas for these meetings are available at:http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/meetings_n.asp.
For more information about the Fort Bragg demonstration, call Mike Carpenter, (707) 937-4362. For more information about the Coastal Justice Coalition, call Frankie Joe Myers, (707) 951-5052.
danbacher by Dan Bacher
Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the chair of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast, apparently believes that oil industry lobbyists should not only oversee the implementation of California environmental laws, but write them also!
On July 12, Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), told Sacramento Bee reporter Rick Daysog the following nugget of environmental wisdom, in reference to AB 32 (the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006):
“I’m not going to say we love this thing, but if that’s the way the state wants to go … we want to make sure that we write regulations that we can comply with and are feasible to do.”
Hold on there, Catherine – I thought that the Legislature and public officials, not oil lobbyists, were supposed to write laws! Not only are you a key official responsible for overseeing the MLPA, but you now consider yourself charged with the task of writing California’s environmental laws also?
Schwarzenegger appointed the oil industry superstar to oversee the implementation of the MLPA for the South Coast. She also sits on the MLPA task force for the North Coast and and sat on the task force for the North Coast
While she is willing to kick Indian Tribes, fishermen, divers and seaweed harvesters off the water to create so-called marine protected areas (MPAs), she has proclaimed numerous times in recent months the need for new oil drilling off the California coast. Incredibly, she does this as the worst environmental catastrophe in U.S. history, the BP Oil Gusher, continues to ravage the Gulf of Mexico and its fishing communities.
Reheis-Boyd, who was apparently installed on the three MLPA panels to make sure that marine reserves don’t intrude upon the oil industry’s present oil drilling operations and future plans, is no Rachel Carson or John Muir. Maybe I’m missing something, but calling for new oil drilling off the California coast doesn’t seem like marine “protection” to me.
For example, in her latest commentary on the association’s website, http://www.wspa.org, Reheis-Boyd stated, “WSPA has not taken a position on specific offshore projects. But we have been vocal about our views that California businesses and consumers would benefit from development of the huge reserves of petroleum off the California coast, in both state and federal waters.”
Then on June 22 in an op-ed on the Noozehawk website, Reheis-Boyd attempted to gloss over the public outrage over the BP Gulf Oil Gusher by touting the “very good” safety record of the oil industry (http://www.noozhawk.com/opinions/article/062210_catherine_reheis-boyd).
“We realize that recent events in the Gulf of Mexico have shaken public confidence in our industry’s ability to produce oil safely,” she said. “However, our industry’s safety record around the world, around the United States and here in California has been very good.”
Reheis-Boyd should try to tell the fishermen and residents of Gulf Coast communities now devastated by the daily carnage in the BP disaster about the oil industry’s “very good” safety record. But she doesn’t care about these communities, just as she doesn’t care about the coastal Indian Tribes, fishermen, divers and coastal communities threatened by false marine “protection,” Schwarzenegger-style.
At the same time that she is overseeing fishery closures that will drive many family fishermen off the water, she hypocritically argued against “the calls to ban new offshore oil exploration and to shut down existing offshore production” in an op-ed in the Capitol Weekly (http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?xid=yzigjrke9jpi4f) on July 15, claiming that “thousands of jobs are at risk in this debate.”
“It’s important that we be smart at the same time we are cautious,” she stated. “We need to understand what happened in the Gulf of Mexico and what can be done to ensure it never happens again. In the meantime, we can’t afford to disrupt the routine maintenance of oil production operations or worse, continually threaten to shut down existing offshore production. Thousands of jobs are at risk in this debate and our struggling economy cannot afford any more shocks.”
So Reheis-Boyd is “concerned” about the loss of oil industry jobs, but she doesn’t care at all about the thousands of fishermen, seaweed harvesters and Tribal members that she and her MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force colleagues want to remove from the water?
The MLPA was a landmark law signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999. Unfortunately, the MLPA Initiative under Schwarzenegger has nothing to do with real marine protection, since oil drilling, water pollution, wave energy projects, habitat destruction and all other human uses of the ocean other than fishing have been completely taken off the table. The panels that designate marine reserves are overseen by oil industry, marina development, real estate and other corrupt corporate interests.
However, the most shameful thing about this process is how the representatives of “Big Green” environmental NGOs such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, Ocean Conservancy and League of Conservation Voters have greenwashed Schwarzenenegger’s MLPA fiasco, continually claiming that it is an “open and transparent process.” These folks apparently think that there is nothing wrong with oil industry, real estate, marina development and other big business interests dominating what passes for marine “protection” in California.
The MLPA was designed to protect ocean resources, but tribal leaders in the Coastal Justice Coalition say that the current initiative is “an attempt by the Schwarzenegger Administration to greenwash his legacy.” In a protest challenging MLPA officials, 40 members of local American Indian Tribes took over the MLPA Science Advisory Team meeting in Eureka on June 29, demanding that they not be blamed for the decline in ocean fisheries.
“We gathered and harvested the ocean’s bounty for thousand of years in a sustainable manner,” said Frankie Joe Myers, a Yurok ceremonial leader and member of the Coastal Justice Coalition. “For California to blame Tribes for it’s reckless mis-management of our fisheries for the last century is simply appalling,”
The MLPA, funded privately by the Resources Legacy Fund Fund Foundation, paves the way for deep water drilling off the California coast while trying to kick tribes, the stewards of the ocean for thousands of years, off their traditional gathering sites on the coast. The MLPA represents elitism, racism and environmental injustice at its worst – and Tribes, fishermen, seaweed harvesters and real environmentalists will continue to resist this insidious program to privatize the oceans!
Stormy Staats of the Klamath-Salmon Media Collective has produced a great video covering the protest by the Coastal Justice Coalition at the MLPA meeting in Eureka. You can view the video on Youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/user/klamathmedia#p/a/u/0/Qcox-tHsJN.
You can expect similar testimony to be provided at the July 21-22 Blue Ribbon Task Force meetings in Ft. Bragg. Agendas for these meetings are available at:http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/meetings_n.asp. A noon rally in support of fisheries and protesting the MLPA Initiative will be held at the southeast corner of Oak and Main Streets in Fort Bragg that day.
For more information about the Coastal Justice Coalition, call Frankie Joe Myers, (707) 951-5052. For more information about the Fort Bragg demonstration, call Mike Carpenter, (707) 937-4362.
