Will we be the last generation of abalone divers?

[Noyo Jim]

The Preferred Alternative for the MLPA in northern-central California will destroy a perfectly healthy abalone fishery for no good reason. The "Integrated Preferred Alternative" (IPA) represents a loss of 30% of the public access shore diving sites and an effort shift of 20% in landings. Most of this effort will shift to Fort Ross, already heavily used by abalone divers. It will set up a domino effect of lowering bag limits and more closed coves to head off serial depletion of the resource.

Here is the letter we submitted to the Commission:

September 4th, 2008

[thekelpcrawler]

Jim,
Very well said & put toghether , I hope this request is properly reviewed ; maps don't always tell the whole story. Safety , user accessablity (or non-accessability) and increased expenses all need to be considered in the public impact of this process .

Thank you for your efforts!

Kevin B. Cooper
San Diego Freediver's

[Noyo Jim]

Here is the address to write to, and an executive summary:

Richard Rogers, President
California Fish and Game Commission
1416 Ninth Street
Sacramento CA 95814-2090

RE: MLPA; Proposed Regulations for Marine Protected Areas in the North Central
Coast Region

Dear President Rogers,

The undersigned individuals and associations have engaged in the MLPA public
process and commend the staff and stakeholders for presenting you with a range of
alternative network proposals.
We do, however, have serious concerns about the "Integrated Preferred
Alternative" (IPA). Our comments center on the area between Jenner and Point Arena,
and the cumulative impacts to the abalone resource. If the IPA proposals in this area are
adopted without alteration, the regulations will be catastrophic for the abalone resource
and the fishery.

To address these serious concerns, we strongly urge you to make the following five
changes to the IPA:

• Move the southern boundary of the Stewart Point State Marine Reserve north
to 38 degrees, 37.5 minutes.

• Remove the "Sea Lion Cove" State Marine Conservation Area.

• Allow the continuance of recreational abalone diving in the Russian River
SCMA.

• Remove the "Saunders Reef" State Marine Conservation Area.

• Change the "Salt Point" State Marine Park into a State Marine Conservation
Area.

[bigeyedave]

Thanks Jim. The other most important piece is that the diving community show up for the meeting Thurs. Oct. 2 at the Flamingo Hotel in Santa Rosa. Public comment starts at 10 am. You need to be there to support 2XA. If you don't you can kiss it goodbye. This is the last chance. Come and be part of the "Sea of White" with Coastside. They can't do it alone.
Dave

[bigeyedave]

Here is a little more.

The Fish and Game Commission will meet at the Flamingo Conference Resort Hotel in Santa Rosa (2777 Fourth Street) on Thursday October the 2nd to take public testimony on the north central coast MLPA proposals. THIS IS YOUR CALL TO ARMS – THE “SEA OF WHITE” NEEDS TO RALLY TO SUPPORT THE CAUSE! This is the second item on their Thursday agenda, which will start at 10AM. There will be NO DECISION at this meeting – that will most likely happen in December or January.

The PSO will be there to make our case for the amendments that we want the Commission to make to the Integrated Preferred Alternative (IPA). We have already submitted our request to the Commission in the letter incorporated in my MLPA End Game Strategy post. For the last two days I have been in San Diego and Los Angeles to solidify our position with our PSO partners and to make additional contact with the BRTF members.

So here is what we need our Coastside members to do; and always in a respectful tone, and with a positive attitude. We have much to lose by an inappropriate confrontation, and much to gain by respectful and well informed input to the Commission.

Show up in your 2XA t-shirts. Let your shirts do your talking for 2XA – they know we support it, and there is no need to beleaguer that point.

Focus on the abalone issue and the unintended consequences to communities and the abalone fishery that were unknowingly built into the IPA. These unknowns and unintended consequences can be addressed by minor technical corrections to the regulations for the three areas identified in the PSO letter: Sea Lion Cove, Saunders Reef (where we also want to allow shore based angling), and the Russian River.
• Focus on the health of the abalone fishery in this area of the coast as consistently stated throughout the process by the Department of Fish Game.
• Focus on how the abalone fishery constitutes the economic backbone of the recreational fishery in this study area.
• Focus on the unintended negative economic impact of the IPA abalone regulations - which can be as large as 38% for the IPA ($3.4M annually), and which can be reduced to 27% ($2.5M) by these three simple technical corrections.
If you do choose to speak, you will only have a minute or two at most. Stay on message, be respectful, and perhaps we can bring some relief to the communities on the north coast and to the thousands of abalone fishermen.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the guys who have gotten us to this point – we need to play a smart end game to ensure that we don’t stumble now. Show up and play a smart end game.

[Tino Bernazzani]

Dave or Jim,
where do we find the 2XA shirts?
I will be there on October 2nd.

[bigeyedave]

Tino,
Check with Dale on Norcalkayakanglers.com. I'm hoping they have more shirts at the meeting like they did at the BRTF meeting. Check with the guys on Coastside. They can probably get you one.





Free Coastside Support 2-XA "Sea of White" tee shirt.
« on: September 24, 2008, 10:18:43 AM » Quote

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I made it to I think 5 or 6 MLPA meetings, gave public comment at 4 or 5, but I'm heading out for our annual North Coast trip next week and don't plan on making it to the FG&C MLPA meeting next Thursday Oct 2

But,

I have an offical Coastside 2-XA "sea of white" tee shirt that I will ship to any one who wants to go and wear it. It's 2XL so it will fit just about anyone,

I'll pay the shipping but I need to know by 10am 9/25 (tomorrow Thurs) otherwise I'm outta here for a week.

Dale L