300 People, 50 Tribes, One Meeting: How California Built Its Marine Protected Areas

In 1999, California passed a law ordering the state to fix its patchwork of ocean parks. For two years, almost nothing happened, and two attempts to get the process moving both failed. It took a 2004 public-private partnership, roughly $35 million in public and philanthropic funding, and a decade of work before the state had a real network of marine protected areas. Partway through that decade, more than 300 people from over 50 tribal nations walked into a public meeting in Fort Bragg to protest how the process was treating their rights.

Andrew Lewin walks through what actually happened between the 1999 Marine Life Protection Act and the 124-MPA network Californians know today: the 2004 partnership with the nonprofit funder Resources Legacy Fund that finally got the process moving, the region-by-region design work built on stakeholder groups, a Science Advisory Team, and a Blue Ribbon Task Force, and the Fish and Game Commission votes that made each region official, starting with the Central Coast in 2007.

The process also shows where good intentions ran into real conflict. On California's North Coast, tribal sovereignty and traditional gathering rights were not built into the process from the start, and it took a public confrontation before the state addressed it. The North Coast's final proposal, with a formal tribal gathering exception, was not adopted until 2012, and tribal leaders accepted it with conditions rather than a full endorsement. Andrew connects this history to yesterday's conversation with Anupa Asokan about the network's ongoing adaptive management review, and explains why managing an MPA network never really finishes.

Takeaways:

• California's Marine Life Protection Act passed in 1999 but sat mostly unused for its first two years, surviving two failed implementation attempts before a 2004 public-private partnership with the nonprofit funder Resources Legacy Fund got the process moving.
• The full process to build California's network of marine protected areas took about a decade and roughly $35 million in public and philanthropic funding.
• Each of the four coastal regions went through the same design steps: a stakeholder group draft, a Science Advisory Team review, a Blue Ribbon Task Force recommendation, and a final vote by the state's Fish and Game Commission. The Central Coast was designated first, in 2007.
• The process did not build in tribal sovereignty and traditional gathering rights from the start. In July 2010, more than 300 people from over 50 tribal nations took over a Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting in Fort Bragg to protest it.
• The North Coast region's final proposal, including a formal tribal gathering exception, was adopted in 2012, and tribal leaders accepted it with conditions rather than a full endorsement.
• California's network now includes roughly 124 marine protected areas and recreational management areas, and it is still being managed through an ongoing adaptive process, the same one covered in yesterday's episode with Anupa Asokan.
• Managing a network of marine protected areas does not end at designation. It requires monitoring, reassessment, and revision, and that takes sustained funding, time, and public patience.

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