Environmental leadership: California restricts ocean fishing

Politics International Politics
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:bravo: Well, done. California’s taking steps like this, while the feds back home protect destructive practices. I hope someone in the DFO gets shamed into acting.

[quote=“CBC: California restricts ocean fishing”]Flying over California’s rugged central coast, Mike Sutton pointed to kelp forests and rocky reefs just below the water’s surface that will soon be off-limits to fishing under one of the country’s most ambitious plans to protect marine life.

“We’re trying to make sure our oceans are [as] protected as our land,” said Sutton, a marine expert at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Despite intense opposition from many fishermen, California wildlife regulators are creating the nation’s most extensive network of “marine protected areas” — stretches of ocean where fishing will be banned or severely restricted.

The first chain of refuges, covering about 520 square kilometres and stretching from Santa Barbara to Half Moon Bay just south of San Francisco, is due to take effect early in 2007. The state plans similar protected zones along the more intensely fished coasts of northern and southern California.

Conservationists say such networks are a new approach to saving the oceans from overfishing. They believe California’s plan could serve as a model for other states and countries.

“It’s the beginning of a historic shift in how we restore, protect and manage our oceans,” said Warner Chabot, the vice-president of the Ocean Conservancy.

“We’re doing something that’s as historic for the oceans as what Teddy Roosevelt did 100 years ago when he created national parks and forests.”[/quote]

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What species of fish are they trying to protect? I know the coho salmon runs are in serious decline there .Although I appaud Cal’s efforts to step up to the plate,their efforts could be in vain unless the DFO in Washinton State and BC follow suit. And then there’s the indians up and down the coast whose attitudes regarding salmon conservation is at par with the Vietnamese fisherman.But it’s a start I guess.

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dfg.ca.gov/mrd/oceansalmon.html#commercial

California has had closed areas to commercial fishing and even some sport fishing for quite a while. In the central and southern coastal areas there was a rock fish ban implemented in the spring of 2002.
This is implemented seasonally and rotated through-out the various fishing regions.
In California private, sport and commercial fishing is closely monitored and regulated by the California Department of Fish and Game. Fishing is regarded is a renewable resource that everybody wants to protect.

dfg.ca.gov/mrd/mlma/index.html

Everybody but the foreign commercial vessels that show up with their huge refrigerator mother ships setting off-shore to be loaded by the worker boats. They couldn’t care about protecting a resource. (Japan)