Proposal to expand Point Loma marine protected area raises concerns

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — A proposal on the table would expand the Cabrillo State Marine Reserve, a marine protected area. The area, intended to preserve marine life, doesn’t allow fishing. Under the proposal, the marine protected area would more than quadruple in size and stretch from the Point Loma Shoreline, up to Sunset Cliffs and out three miles into the ocean.

“These are like state parks in the ocean right off shore in California state waters, they are just like state parks on land, they are off limits to commercial activities or destructive activities, they are protected so you can go visit, you can go in a boat, you can dive and explore it, just like you can hike on land, but you aren’t able to take things out of it, you’ve got to leave it as you find it basically,” said Laura Deehan, president of Environment California.

Environment California is one of the groups that submitted a proposal to expand the Cabrillo State Marine Reserve and expand the kelp forest.

“This is my whole life, I’m not qualified to do anything else,” Cruz said.

It’s an area Cpt. Zeek Cruz knows very well. He spends more time on sea than he does on land.

“This whole area up here is a place I’ve been fishing my whole life,” Cruz said, pointing to the vast ocean surrounding us over the kelp forest off the shores of Point Loma.

Cruz said he’s been fishing the area his whole life, and as a fishing boat captain, he relies on the area up for debate as part of his livelihood.

“We stand to lose a really important resource here in Southern California, the Point Loma kelp bed is the primary fishing area for a lot of people, people come out here to make a living, to feed their families,” he said. “We just cant let this pass.”

Cruz added that if this proposal were to go through, it wouldn’t stop people from fishing entirely.

“If we’re not able to fish here, we’re still going fishing, we still got to go find fish,” Cruz said. “That’s more fuel burned, that’s more expenses for a business, that’s more expenses for just your average guy going out fishing on the weekend.”

California has 124 marine protected areas up and down the coast of the Golden State.

MPAs have different limits, some allow more or less activities.

Deehan said currently MPAs protect about 16% of the state’s coastline, with 12% under the more restrictive coastline. And the state is trying, but only about 9% of the state’s coastline is in a reserve, such as the Cabrillo Reserve.

“Basically all destructive activity is off limit,” Deehan said.

The state reviews the MPAs every 10 years. As part of this review process, the state is requesting proposals to expand the marine protected areas.

The Fish and Game Commission held a meeting Wednesday, one of the items on the agenda is reviewing the process for evaluating the marine protected areas in California. During the meeting, state leaders focused on the importance of protecting the marine life and looked ahead to the proposal process.

“You can just see the wildlife flourishing,” Deehan said. He added there’s bigger fish and more fish and more wildlife since the inception of the MPAs.

One of 20 proposals submitted was Environment California’s, which would amount to about 81 legal changes, but Deehan said overall, the changes statewide would be minimal.

“If you add up all those expansion proposals, it would only amount to about 2% more of the coastline getting protected,” Deehan said.

“We’re really excited to take the existing marine protected area network, that’s definitely working. We’ve been seeing it in action for 10 years, building on that success by strengthening and expanding that existing network,” she said.

Deehan said they conducted outreach with the public and scientists, and engaged 50 marine scientists to see what the threats and issues facing the ocean are, and what are the biggest gaps in protecting the coastline.

“One of the things that kept coming up in our outreach to scientists was that the kelp forests in the ocean, which are like the sequoias of the see, really important habitat for marine life offshore, they have been wiped out in part by recent marine heat events,” Deehan said.

She said they have proposed the strongest level of protection, a state marine reserve, where commercial activity would be off limits and all fishing. But their petition said they are open to feedback “and so if there is community interest in continuing to allow fishing from shore or hook and line fishing, we would absolutely be open to amending the petition,” she added.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife will begin looking into the proposals submitted, researching and identifying the gaps and which petitions will address the issues. All of the petitions are expected to go through an evaluation process, which is anticipated to take until November. After that, there will be a public process where people can give their feedback on the proposals. Deehan said this is the first time the state has taken the petitions, and isn’t sure of the timeline, but believes the proposals likely wouldn’t be accepted until next year.

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