As I tap on my writer’s sword, it seems atypically difficult to describe the intense scene when roughly 100 community ocean lovers came together to hear and discuss details with submitters of proposals crafted to adjust or add Marine Protected Areas (MPA). It was a room full of people who care deeply about and actually spend great amounts of time at sea, therefore the meeting erupted wildly and repeatedly.

The California MPA Collaborative put together this meeting with advance notice to the public. The presenters were individuals and organizations who submitted proposals into the MPA Decadal Review process, to alter existing or create new MPAs.

The participating audience consisted of concerned community members and people who spend a great deal of time at sea. Some were recreational, some were commercial.

What impressed me, since I know many of the good people attending, was the vast amount of knowledge (general oceanic and especially our local waters) assembled in that room. The presenters were far outmatched by the knowledge of the attendees.

Some of the proposals were well accepted, including one to allow diving for urchins in certain MPAs to reduce the major kelp predator and give kelp a chance to restore naturally during a period of troubling oceanic conditions. Another was to adjust specific regulations and allowable uses of certain MPAs to reduce incompatibilities and make them easier for the public to understand.

One proposal will allow for fishing pelagic fish (e.g. tuna, swordfish, etc.) which are not site specific, within certain MPAs along the back side of the islands. There was genuine logic to these several proposals and there was good helpful community engagement and discussion.

Then came proposals from enviro organizations whose true mission appears to be locking away parts of the ocean. By far the most contentious one was turning the Carpinteria area into an MPA where all take is prohibited, except by tribal members who could perhaps have anything they want while everyone else gets locked out.

As you can imagine, the attendees erupted in opposition to the Carpinteria MPA proposal. A tribal person there in support of the MPA proposal was visibly angered by attendees’ reactions, and, as I recall, he said some inappropriate things, mentioning white power and challenging why tribes should have to obey any government’s laws other than their own. His words only offended attendees and did nothing to help the proposal.

The most effective argument against the Carpinteria MPA is that during the time when the network of MPAs was created years ago, we ocean users had a clear choice of having to give up either Naples Reef or Carpinteria in order to keep the other. Understanding the importance of community love and use of the Carpinteria waters, we gave up Naples Reef. There was great anger among attendees that the State would consider going back on our agreement.

An equal or greater reason for not imposing a new MPA at Carpinteria is that it would strongly and negatively impact subsistence anglers who fish the surf zone throughout the area to just be able to put some healthy protein on their hungry kids’ plates that day. Our disadvantaged community needs that area to remain open so they can feed their kids.

The relatively trivial reasons stated by the proposers in support of that MPA were immediately recognized by the knowledgeable attendees as nothing but contrived justification for closing down more of the ocean to meet their enviro agenda. We heard way too much of their agenda.

Another Proposed MPA was to give kelp a chance to come back. The area right next to that proposal is already an MPA where most of us can’t go, and it is suffering from natural kelp loss with very little human activity.

The attendees quickly pointed out the fallacy of this proposal. When asked if the proposer had ever even visited the proposed island area, the proposer had no answer.

Again, it is just an attempt to close down another portion of the ocean. I serve on California’s Kelp Restoration and Management Plan Working Group, and I feel this proposal is nonsensical.

Finally, a large MPA was proposed which encompassed Point Sal. This is an area so difficult to get to, either by ground (something like a 10-mile hike) or by sea (it is an unfriendly ocean in that vicinity), that the ocean is naturally protected. Again, the proposal was just another move against ocean access.

The meeting went way over the allotted time. Attendees left feeling dismayed at the blatant effort to shut down ocean access, when our wildlife is very well managed by the federal and state governments’ wildlife agencies who base their work in actual science.

There was, however, some good feeling because certain of the proposals were thought out and beneficial to the existing network of MPAs, without adding more closed areas. It was a wild community meeting, and I’m glad the community showed up. It was community advocacy at its best.