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April 9, 2008

American Sportfishing Association Policy Alert
Support Marine Protected Area Proposal 2XA - Write the California Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force

For more information, contact Gordon Robertson, vice president and Government Affairs lead, 703.519.9691, x237, or Patty Doerr, Ocean Resource Policy director, x244.

How You Can Help
Please send a letter to the Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF), asking the BRTF members to endorse Proposal 2XA and forward the proposal to the California Fish and Game Commission (FGC). Proposal 2XA balances the requirements of California’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) with the needs of public user groups, especially recreational anglers. We need your help to ensure this proposal is advanced to the FGC as the preferred marine protected area (MPA) alternative for the North Central Coast. For more detailed information on the MLPA, visit the California page of KeepAmericaFishing.org.

For clarification – the MLPA requires that California establish MPAs. ASA and its colleagues in the Partnership for Sustainable Oceans (PSO) are working within the process to ensure that the needs of public user groups, especially recreational anglers, are included in the final plan for the North Central Coast.

The Situation and ASA’s Position
The American Sportfishing Association and its colleagues in the Partnership for Sustainable Oceans are supporting Proposal 2XA as the preferred network of MPAs in the North Central Coast phase of California’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) implementation. The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force meets on April 22 and 23, 2008 to vote on which proposal to forward to the California Fish and Game Commission as the “preferred alternative.”

The Marine Resources Protection Plan, which the PSO originally proposed in October 2007, is the foundation of Proposal 2XA. The proposal strategically establishes MPAs to achieve broad-based conservation of marine resources while minimizing unnecessary closures to recreational fishing, thus ensuring that sustainable recreational activities will be available to the public now and into the future.

Proposal 2XA is designed to enhance local fisheries populations, most specifically groundfish (rockfish) and roundfish (lingcod, cabezone, greenling), the very species that will benefit the most from MPAs. Marine reserves, areas closed to recreational fishing, are included in the proposal to fulfill the broader ecosystem goals of the MLPA, and are placed in areas where they will have the least impact on recreational anglers. These reserves are supplemented with marine conservation areas and marine parks that allow for fishing activities on species and stocks that do not benefit from MPAs.