An Associated Press report on Tuesday, August 9 revealed that Arnold Schwarzenegger, California Governor from November 2003 through 2010, could face legal action for recently smoking a cigar at Salzburg Airport in Austria.
"Was it lit or was it cold?" the article asked. "The status of a cigar in Arnold Schwarzenegger's mouth at an Austrian airport could decide whether or not he faces legal action."
"Smoking at airports is banned in Austria and an anti-smoking lobby said Tuesday it plans to launch a suit against the former California governor for puffing on a stogie after arriving in June at Salzburg Airport," AP continued (http://www.sacbee.com/2011/08/09/3826143/was-it-lit-arnie-could-be-charged.html).
It is doubtful whether anything will come of this latest episode of the long, sordid saga of the "Governator," arguably the worst Governor in California history for fish, fishing communities and the environment.
"Salzburg municipal legal expert Josef Goldberger told state broadcaster ORF that Arnie can ignore any requests from authorities in his homeland to respond since the charge is not covered by treaties," AP noted.
Mainstream media refused to cover Schwarzenegger regime's biggest scandal
While the mainstream media makes a big deal out of this latest "scandal" about Schwarzenegger and the covert relationship with his maid that resulted in the birth of a son, AP and others persistently neglected to cover the much more newsworthy and scandalous war that Schwarzenegger waged against Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations, fishing communities and Indian Tribes during his regime.
Instead, the mainstream media and corporate environmental NGOs falsely portrayed Schwarzenegger as the "Green Governor," greenwashing his abysmal environmental policies that violated numerous state, federal and international laws.
Schwarzenegger in 2010 received awards for his "green" leadership from NRDC, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the "Beautiful Earth Group," and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Chief Prosecuting Attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper, and others in a carefully orchestrated campaign to greenwash his legacy before he left office.
In spite of the claims of his collaborators, Schwarzenegger's true legacy is the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, threadfin shad, young striped bass, Sacramento splittail and other fish populations spurred by record water exports out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta from 2003 to 2006.
Rather than taking the necessary measures to restore these imperiled fish populations, Schwarzenegger tried to make things even worse by attacking the biological opinion protecting Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River spring and winter run chinook salmon, green sturgeon and southern resident killer whales, along with the biological opinion protecting the endangered Delta smelt.
He relentlessly campaigned for a peripheral canal through the Delta Vision and Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) processes and the November 2009 water bond/water policy package. Meanwhile, he fast-tracked a corrupt Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative that does nothing to "protect" the ocean from water pollution, oil drilling and spills, military testing, corporate aquaculture, habitat destruction and other human uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
When Schwarzenegger left office on January 2, 2011 after waging an unprecedented war on California fish populations and fishing communities, millions celebrated his departure.
Arnold's true environmental record exposed
Schwarzenegger's real environmental legacy is much different from how Schwarzenegger and his collaborators portray it. What was his actual environmental record? (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/05/18/schwarzenegger-screwed-fish-fishermen-and-tribes/)
• Schwarzenegger allowed the Department of Water Resources to pump record levels of water out of the Delta from 2003 to 2007, resulting in the Central Valley salmon and California Delta pelagic species collapses.The largest annual water export levels in history occurred in 2003 (6.3 million acre feet), 2004 (6.1 MAF), 2005 (6.5 MAF) and 2006 (6.3 MAF). Exports averaged 4.6 MAF annually between 1990 and 1999 and increasing to an average of 6 MAF between 2000 and 2007, a rise of almost 30 percent, according to the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
• He constantly attacked two federal biological opinions, released in 2009, protecting Delta smelt, Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, green sturgeon and southern resident killer whales.
• His administration did nothing while tens of thousands of striped bass, Sacramento blackfish, Sacramento splittail and other species perished during a levee repair project at Prospect Island in the California Delta in November 2007.
• He vetoed numerous environmental bills, including vetoing a badly needed bill sponsored by Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis) in 2008 that would provide for emergency fish rescue plans on the Delta.
• He consistently slashed funding for game wardens in the field while California has the lowest ratio of wardens to residents of any state in the nation.
• His administration directed the Central Valley Regional Water Control Board to continue to grant waivers to agricultural polluters, in spite of the dire condition of Delta fisheries.
• Since 2004, he fast-tracked the controversial, privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, a fiasco ridden with conflicts of interest, institutional racism and corruption. Rather than creating marine protected areas that truly protect the ocean, this initiative kicks sustainable fishermen and gatherers off the water while refusing to deal with pollution, coastal development, military testing, wave energy projects and other human uses of the ocean that imperil marine life and ecosystems.
• As Schwarzenegger fast-tracked the privately-funded MLPA fiasco, he twice vetoed two crab pot limit bills needed to preserve California crab fisheries.
• Schwarzenegger introduced a bill that would allow the lame-duck Governor to choose 25 development projects each year that would be exempt from the state's strict standards under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (http://www.ecovote.org/blog/?p=1674).
• The Governor's Office of Pesticide Regulation on December 1, 2010 inexplicably approved methyl iodide to replace the soil fumigant methyl bromide, even though methyl iodide is even more toxic to animals, fish and people than methyl bromide (http://www.sacbee.com/2010/12/04/3231811/inexplicably-state-approves-new.html).
Schwarzenegger's water policies led by peripheral canal campaign
However, the "crown jewel" of Schwarzenegger's water policies was his campaign to build a peripheral canal/canal and new dams through his Delta Vision and Bay Delta Conservation Plan processes. This construction of a canal/tunnel, estimated to cost anywhere from $23 to $53.8 billion, is likely to lead to the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail and other species.
In his zeal to build the canal, Schwarzenegger tried to sabotage the campaign by the Klamath, Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa Valley Tribes, fishermen and environmentalists to remove four Klamath River dams by including $250 million for Klamath River dam removal in an unpopular water bond that creates the infrastructure for a peripheral canal and new dams. Because it would have faced certain defeat at the polls last November, Schwarzenegger and the Legislative leadership postponed the water bond until November 2012.
In addition, the Schwarzenegger administration granted agribusiness permits to divert water from the Scott and Shasta rivers, resulting in the de-watering of these Klamath River tributaries at tremendous risk to endangered coho salmon. Schwarzenegger's "scorched earth" policy towards the Scott and Shasta forced Earthjustice to file a lawsuit against the Department of Fish and Game on behalf of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, Klamath Riverkeeper, the Sierra Club, the Quartz Valley Indian Tribe, Northcoast Environmental Center and Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC).
While his record regarding fishery and water issues is arguably the worst of any Governor in California history, Schwarzenegger's portrayal by the mainstream media and corporate environmental NGOs as a relentless advocate for "clean energy" is also very deceptive. Former Senator Sheila Kuel eloquently exposed the myth of the "Jolly Green Giant" in her article, "A Lame Duck Governor Fabricates A Hoped-For Legacy," in the California Progress Report on July 29, 2010 (http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/?q=node/8010
Brown administration continues Arnold's policies
Unfortunately, Governor Jerry Brown and Natural Resources Secretary John Laird are forging ahead with the three most notorious environmental policies of the Schwarzenegger regime - the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to build a peripheral canal, the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create questionable "marine protected areas," and the massive export of northern California water to corporate agribusiness and southern California water agencies that has resulted in record numbers of Sacramento splittail and other fish species perishing at the state and federal water project Delta pumping facilities this year.
An astounding 8,966,976 splittail, 35,556 chinook salmon, 430,289 striped bass, 54,412 largemouth bass, 69,383 bluegill, 76,570 white catfish, 28,301 channel catfish, 233,174 threadfin shad, 264,171 American shad, 1,642 steelhead and 51 Delta smelt were "salvaged" in the state and federal water export facilities from January 1 to August 2, 2011, according to Department of Fish and Game (DFG) data.
However, the overall loss of fish in and around the State Water Project and Central Valley Project facilities is believed to dwarf the actual salvage counts, according to "A Review of Delta Fish Population Losses from Pumping Operations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta," prepared by Larry Walker Associates in January 2010 for the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District (http://www.srcsd.com/pdf/dd/fishlosses.pdf).
The staggering losses of Sacramento splittail and other fish species in the death pumps of the state and federal water projects on the California Delta are taking place as the Brown and Obama administrations export record volumes of water to corporate agribusiness and southern California water agencies, continuing the fish killing legacy of the Schwarzenegger administration.
To read an excellent investigative piece by Patrick Porgans and Lloyd Carter about the legacy of Gov. Edmund G. "Pat" Brown and his two children, current Gov. Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown and Kathleen Brown, and their connection to public bonds, budget deficits, the Bay-Delta Estuary conflict, and the November 2012 water bond measure, go to: http://www.lloydgcarter.com/co...
The questions that MLPA advocates refuse to answer
Officials from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's fast-track Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative and their supporters have constantly repeated the false claims that the controversial process is "open, transparent and inclusive" and "protects" the ocean as part of a well-funded propaganda campaign to greenwash Schwarzenegger's abysmal environmental legacy before he leaves office.
In an editorial on December 20, the Sacramento Bee joined the campaign to greenwash the outgoing Republican Governor's environmental record by praising Schwarzenegger's MLPA initiative for taking "more bold steps on protecting state's coast."
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's environmental legacy certainly includes Assembly Bill 32, the law that aims to reduce carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020," the editorial states. "Equally significant, and less well known, is his support for conserving Californrnia's diverse coastal and marine wildlife habitats along the 1,100 mile coastline."
The Bee and other proponents of the process refuse to address the many criticisms that advocates of true ocean protection have leveled against the MLPA Initiative. I have challenged MLPA proponents to answer a series of hard questions that cut to the core of the MLPA process.
None have responded yet to my specific questions, but only continue to repeat their unsubstantiated claims that the Initiative is "open, transparent and inclusive" and that anybody who criticizes the initiative is an opponent of "ocean protection."
Rather than address the many criticisms by grassroots environmentalists, Indian Tribes and fishing groups of the MLPA's implementation under Schwarzenegger, the Bee stated, "Critics should cool the rhetoric and give this conservation effort a chance to work."
The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) is a comprehensive, landmark law that was signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999. The MLPA, as amended in 2004, is very broad in its scope.
The law was intended to not only restrict or prohibit fishing in a network of "marine protected areas," but to restrict or prohibit other human activities including coastal development and water pollution.
"Coastal development, water pollution, and other human activities threaten the health of marine habitat and the biological diversity found in California's ocean waters," the law states in Fish and Game Code Section 2851, section c.
The law broadly defines a "marine protected area" (MPA) as "a named, discrete geographic marine or estuarine area seaward of the mean high tide line or the mouth of a coastal river, including any area of inertial or sub tidal terrain, together with its overlying water and associated flora and fauna that has been designated by law, administrative action, or voter initiative to protect or conserve marine life and habitat" (Fish and Game Code 2852, section c).
However, the implementation of the law under Schwarzenegger has become a parody of real marine protection, in spite of the claims by the Bee editors and other MLPA Initiative advocates.
The Bee says, "Fishing and other activities in these protected areas are restricted or banned, allowing delicate reefs and kelp forests to recover." What are these other activities?
The MLPA process under Schwarzenegger has taken oil drilling, water pollution, wave energy development, habitat destruction and other human uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table. The MLPA would do nothing to stop another Exxon Valdez or Deepwater Horizon oil disaster from devastating the California coast.
Acknowledging the lack of funding for monitoring and enforcement for the MLPA at a time the State of California is in its greatest ever budget crisis, the Bee urges the incoming Brown administration to find "creative new funding sources, such as voluntary contributions, private fundraising, income tax checkoffs."
What the heck? Proposition 21, the State Parks Initiative, could have funded implementation of the MLPA, but the public voted it down in November. Does the Bee really think that the public is now ready to shell out more money to a controversial program through voluntary contributions and income tax checkoffs?
Here are the questions that I pose to the Sacramento Bee editorial board and other proponents of the MLPA fiasco.
Why did the Governor and MLPA officials install an oil industry lobbyist, a marina developer, a real estate executive and other corporate interests as "marine guardians" to remove Indian Tribes, fishermen and seaweed harvesters from the water by creating so-called "marine protected areas" (MPAS)? Isn't this very bad public policy?
Why was Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, allowed to make decisions as the chair of the BRTF for the South Coast and as a member of the BRTF for the North Coast, panels that are supposedly designed to "protect" the ocean, when she has called for new oil drilling off the California coast?
Why is a private corporation, the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, being allowed to privatize ocean resource management in California through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the DFG?
Why do the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) and Science Advisory Team continue to violate the California Public Records Act by refusing to respond to numerous requests by Bob Fletcher, former DFG Deputy Director, for key documents and records pertaining to the MLPA implementation process?
Why do MLPA staff and the California Fish and Game Commission refuse to hear the pleas of the representatives of the California Fish and Game Wardens Association, who oppose the creation of any new MPAs until they have enough funding for wardens to patrol existing reserves?
Why did MLPA staff until recently violate the Bagley-Keene Act and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by banning video and audio coverage of the initiative's work sessions?
Why has the Initiative shown little or no respect for tribal subsistence and ceremonial rights? In fact, it was only because of massive opposition by North Coast Tribes and their allies that an amendment that would have terminated tribal fishing and gathering rights failed to pass during a special MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force teleconference meeting held in Fort Bragg, Crescent City and Eureka on December 9.
Since the MLPA was privatized in 2004, the initiative has violated the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Article 32, Section 2, of the Declaration mandates "free prior and informed consent" in consultation with the indigenous population affected by a state action (http://www.iwgia.org/sw248.asp).
The unified proposal adopted by North Coast MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force is the first MLPA proposal that acknowledges tribal gathering and fishing rights, a tribute to the hard work of the Tribal, fishing and environmental stakeholders. However, why did it take 6 years for this to happen?
Why were there no Tribal scientists on the MLPA Science Advisory Team and why were there no Tribal representatives on the Blue Ribbon Task Forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast or South Coast MLPA Study Regions? Isn't this a case of institutional racism on behalf of MLPA officials?
Why does the initiative discard the results of any scientists who disagree with the MLPA's pre-ordained conclusions? These include the peer reviewed study by Dr. Ray Hilborn, Dr. Boris Worm and 18 other scientists, featured in Science magazine in July 2009, that concluded that the California current had the lowest rate of fishery exploitation of any place studied on the planet.
Finally, why did 300 Tribal members, fishermen, immigrant workers and environmentalists feel so left out of the MLPA process that they had to organize a march and direct action to take over a MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting in Fort Bragg of July 21 so their voices would be finally heard?
Proponents of the MLPA Initiative have failed to address the many criticisms of the MLPA process by Indian Tribes, recreational fishermen, commercial fishermen, conservationists and environmental justice advocates.
Real environmentalists support true, comprehensive ocean protection as the MLPA originally intended, not the facade of protection that Schwarzenegger's MLPA Initiative provides.
Real environmentalists don't support a process that has gone to great lengths to take oil drilling, water pollution, wave energy development, habitat destruction, military testing and other human uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table in its perverse concept of marine "protection."
Finally, real environmentalists oppose the privatization of ocean conservation that has occurred under the MLPA Initiative.
The MLPA process must be seen in the context of the campaign by the Schwarzenegger administration, corporate media, some NGOs and political hacks to greenwash the environmental legacy of the worst Governor in California history for fish, water and the environment.
This is the same Governor who presided over the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail and other fish species, relentlessly campaigned for the construction of an environmentally destructive and enormously expensive peripheral canal and new dams and vetoed numerous laws protecting fish, water and the environment.
John and Barbara Stephens-Lewallen, two of Mendocino County's most dedicated and respected environmental leaders, are asking Governor-elect Jerry Brown to terminate Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's widely-contested Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
"We ask you to cancel the illegal and unconstitutional memorandum of understanding signed under the Schwarzenegger administration transferring powers of the State of California to the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, a private foundation, to control the process of creating Marine Protected Areas in California State lands and ocean waters under the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative," the Philo-based couple stated in a letter to Brown.
"The corrupt, privatized Marine Life Protection Act Initiative process scorns state laws and sovereign tribal rights," they wrote. "Marine Protected Areas enacted under the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative threaten great environmental and economic harm to present and future generations of Californians."
"Please act to cancel the memorandum of understanding with Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, and to nullify the Marine Protected Areas already enacted by this corrupt private process. Californians need and deserve access to sustainable food from our public ocean waters and intertidal zone. We do not consent to being governed by private foundations," they concluded.
The Stephens-Lewallens have fought offshore oil drilling, the clear cutting of forests, military testing, wave energy projects and other threats to coastal ecosystems for decades. John was the co-founder of the Ocean Protection Coalition and Seaweed Rebellion, two prominent grassroots environmental organizations.
The Marine Life Protection Act, signed by Governor Gray Davis into law in 1999, was designed to create a comprehensive network of marine protected areas along the California coast. However, the Schwarzenegger administration, in a grotesque parody of marine "protection," has taken water pollution, oil drilling, oil spills, military testing, wave energy projects, habitat destruction and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table.
Schwarzenegger appointed an oil lobbyist, real estate executive, marina developer and other corporate interests to preside over the implementation of so-called marine protected areas on the California coast. This process has been characterized by conflicts of interest, corruption and the violation of numerous state, federal and international laws, including the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.
During the annual fisheries forum at the State Legislature in Sacramento in April 2009, It was John who exposed the alarming role that a top oil industry lobbyist, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, now the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, was playing in the MPLA process.
"Why is Catherine Reheis-Boyd, CEO and Chief of Staff for the Western States Petroleum Association, a key member of the five-member MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force which has decreed new zones where people can take no food from state waters?" Stephens-Lewallen asked the Senators and Assemblymembers. "Is it coincidence that the Point Arena Basin offshore from Point Arena is the area of highest oil industry interest in Northern California, and the only tract here now open to Minerals Management Service offshore oil leasing process?"
In August of 2009, Reheis-Boyd in fact became the chair of the South Coast MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force and also served on the North Coast task force. Isn't having a oil industry lobbyist, who has repeatedly called for new drilling off the California coast, a huge conflict of interest?
The movement against the privately-funded MLPA Initiative is one of the most significant grassroots political movements on the North Coast since the Redwood Summer of 1990. On July 21, over 300 people including members of 50 Indian Tribes, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, immigrant seafood industry workers and environmentalists peacefully took control of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) meeting in Fort Bragg to demand that the initiative respect tribal gathering and fishing rights.
Under political pressure from the Yurok Tribe and other North Coast Tribes, the task force decided on Thursday, December 10 not to approve a motion that would have effectively terminated Tribal gathering and fishing rights.
The Tribes, fishermen and environmentalists insisted that there be no changes to the unified marine protected area proposal developed by stakeholders in a long, grueling and controversial process. The Klamath and Coastal Justice coalitions launched a campaign to urge the panel to stop any attempt to deny tribal subsistence and ceremonial rights - and this political pressure, along with a strongly worded letter by Yurok Tribal Chair Thomas O'Rourke and a letter from a coalition of other North Coast Tribes, apparently worked.
The North Coast proposal will be presented to the Fish and Game Commission on February 2, 2011, after Governor-Elect Jerry Brown takes office.
Meanwhile, the Commission (FGC) in Santa Barbara on December 15 voted 3-2 to approve a wide-ranging array of marine protected areas (MPAs) along the southern California coast. The Central Coast and North Central Coast marine reserves are already in place.
"We hope that sovereign tribal rights will stay in the forefront of the MLPA process," said Georgiana Myers, organizer for the Klamath Justice Coalition and Yurok Tribal member. "This should be true in every region that is impacted by the MLPA, especially on the North Coast. We will be organizing people to show up in numbers for the Commission meeting in February."
Brown has to date made no comment on his position on the MLPA Initiative, a process that Governor Schwarzenegger privatized in 2004. While NRDC, the Ocean Conservancy and other big environmental NGOs avidly support the privately funded process, grassroots environmentalists, fishermen, Tribal members and pro-democracy activists strongly oppose the corrupting influence of private Resources Legacy Fund Foundation money on a public process.
The MLPA process was privatized by the same Governor who presided over the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail and other fish species, relentlessly campaigned for the construction of an environmentally destructive and enormously expensive peripheral canal and new dams and vetoed numerous laws protecting fish, water and the environment.
The ocean is like another planet for most people, full of discoveries yet to be made. As a biodiversity researcher at the California Academy of Sciences, I'm amazed by the astonishing array of life under the waves.
Though the ocean covers 70 percent of our planet, few places are untouched by human activity. Until not so long ago, the ocean seemed so infinite and huge, we could not possibly use up its resources. Many of us have seen those old black and white photographs of fishermen proudly standing next to enormous fish, or a cascade of sardines on a boat in Monterey. But today, the story is very different.
Overfishing, pollution and climate change are ravaging entire ecosystems around the world - rocky reefs, tropical waters and kelp forests alike. We now hear about emaciated whales, seals and seabirds that can't find enough food in the sea to survive.
That's why we should use the scientific tools that we have to help restore our ocean ecosystems right now, so that future generations won't look back and wonder why
we didn't stop the trajectory of ocean degradation while we still had the chance.
Marine protected areas and reserves are one of those tools, which have been proven to have a dramatic effect on the productivity, health and diversity of marine life.
Right now, the California Fish & Game Commission has the power to install a plan for north central California that will create a network of scientifically-vetted, community-created protected areas. A compromise plan, the "Integrated Preferred Alternative" has been created. All the Commission has to do is vote yes.
Creating these protected areas is one step toward recovering what we've taken from the ocean. These resources have been taken too quickly, with ever-expanding nets, technologies, and appetites. Of the 600 marine fish stocks monitored by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, about a quarter are already depleted or overexploited. Here in California, some fish species have declined by 90 percent from historical levels.
But I'm still hopeful. The wonderful thing about nature is her resiliency. Time and time again we see that if we reduce human pressures and give nature a chance, it's amazing how fast she can bounce back.
Scientists around the world have found that when ecosystems are at their natural, healthy state, they have more resilience to climate change, big storms, and fluctuations in nutrients - the kinds of changes we know our oceans will increasingly face.
Marine Protected Areas are critical to the sustained ecological and economic health of California's oceans. To some people, creating areas in the ocean where fishing is limited might seem extreme. But all we are really trying to do is make sure that we don't deplete the resource forever, to the point that it won't come back, which has already happened more than once with fisheries we didn't protect in time.
That's why it's important to integrate science into the way we manage our oceans. Scientists agree that MPAs are like preventative medicine for healthy oceans. If we act now to take care of our coast, we are building a strong immune system so the oceans can cope with change. Here in California, right now, we have a responsibility and an opportunity to support healthy oceans by supporting marine protected areas.
50 years ago, when I began exploring the ocean, nobody imagined that anything we might do to or take from the ocean would affect its overall health. Now we know better. We know, for example, that we've taken more than 90 percent of many commercially exploited species from the sea, and that nearly half of the coral reefs have disappeared. The health of the ocean, humankind's life support system, is at a crisis point.
We're just starting to realize the true impacts of climate change and other human activities on the ocean, where protection has lagged far behind conservation efforts on land. The frightening decreases in fish size and abundance are well documented. The state of the fishing and seafood industries supports this finding, with declines in the number of vessels and processors, and drastically reduced revenues generated from California fisheries. Now is the time to take action and put the Pacific on the road to recovery and long-term health.
The Obama Administration has made ocean protection a national priority, launching a new ocean policy task force in June--which the President dubbed Ocean Month--to unify management of the nation's coasts and waters. This is exactly what is needed: a coherent national policy based on science and informed by local economic interests. As has become common when it comes to forward-thinking natural resource management, California is leading the charge.
On August 5th, the north central coast of California will have a new plan for ocean health under the Marine Life Protection Act, a landmark law passed 10 years ago to preserve the state's most iconic attractions: our coast and ocean. After two years of careful study and community input, the Fish & Game Commission is poised to adopt a system of marine protected areas that will conserve the region's sea life and habitats.
Local stakeholders have carefully reviewed scientific and economic data to create an ocean health plan that will protect key sites, such as the Farallon Islands and Point Reyes Headlands, while leaving 90 percent of the coast open for fishing. The plan is intended to meet the needs of diverse community groups, including fishermen, hoteliers and restaurateurs, conservationists and surfers. It represents a fair compromise that will minimize short-term economic impacts while seeking significant conservation value, and thereby, long term economic gain.
With fisheries in decline, we can't afford to delay these essential protections. The science and economic data are clear: the Integrated Preferred Alternative plan is the best solution for the north central coast. I urge the California Fish & Game Commission to adopt this proposal "as is" to ensure the future health and resilience of our ocean.
