*** Reminder — next meeting is June 4, 11 AM to 3 PM, at the Sanctuary office, 299 Foam Street, Monterey. Contact Brock Bernstein, 805-646-8369, brockb@west.net, or Holly Price, 831-647-4247, holly.price@noaa.gov, with any questions. ***

All attendees (see below for list of attendees) agreed on the following as a useful starting point for the Alliance’s activities.

Problem/mission statement

To develop an objective evaluation of the reasons for, feasibility of, alternatives to, and potential results of any marine protected area that restricts extractive activities, in order to provide recommendations to California Department of Fish and Game (CDF&G), Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and its Stakeholder Advisory Council (SAC), and the Pacific Fishery Management Council.

Organization and process

After discussion of various decision-making processes (for example, consensus or voting) it was agreed that the group would work toward developing consensus to the greatest extent possible, that voting would be used as needed to make decisions when consensus cannot be achieved, and the two science representatives and the two conservation representatives would be ex officio members and would not vote, although they will participate fully in all discussions. Although invited to be full voting members, the two conservation representatives and the two science representatives preferred to be ex officio rather than full voting members. This was because of their perception that the makeup of the workgroup did not represent the entire range of stakeholder interests in a balanced way, but was instead weighted toward fishing interests. Other workgroup members took issue with this perception but all agreed to accept the wishes of the science and conservation representatives.

The workgroup’s primary purposes are to help fishing communities to be better prepared and organized to participate in discussions and negotiations about marine reserves and to reach out to other interests to find common ground on this topic.

It was also agreed that meetings will not be widely publicized but will be open to anyone who wants to attend. However, participation in discussion will be limited to workgroup members, their designated alternates, and invited specialists in science, conservation, socioeconomics, and other areas. An important goal of the workgroup is to help develop a consensus about the role of marine reserves in the Sanctuary that includes all major interest groups. Therefore, in order to broaden the discussion and bridge differences of opinion with other interest groups, the workgroup may hold workshops on specific topics, joint meetings with the Science and Conservation subcommittees of the SAC, or other activities as needed. The workgroup will also consider adding a public comment period to some meetings to solicit input from observers.

Desired outcomes

The workgroup agreed they would like to see the following outcomes. This list is not exhaustive nor is it intended to control or restrict the workgroup’s activities. Instead it was developed to identify major concerns and begin to identify areas of overlap in terms of what the workgroup members would like to work toward:

• Healthy and viable fisheries
• Staying in business
• Fishing cultures continue
• Evaluate if existing regulations work
• Sanctuary and fishermen work together
• Working and trustful relationships between the sanctuary and fishermen
• Better local resource assessments
• Better science and real science
• Using science to validate and monitor reserves to see if they work
• Recognition that sometimes science is not the answer
• Determine if reserves are needed
• Reserves considered appropriately, for example, perhaps not for migratory species
• Recognition of diversity within fisheries (different fisheries need different management tools)
• Consider the role of regime shifts
• Give and take on habitat improvement
• Limited entry for squid fishery

Action items

The workgroup identified specific next steps that are necessary to support its efforts:

• Prepare an overview of existing regulations and how they are working
• Review the Channel Islands reserves effort to see what might or should be done differently
• Produce or get maps of fishery problem areas
• Produce or get maps of areas critical to user groups
• Produce or get maps of bottom types and habitats
• Ask fishermen for issues and criteria related to decisions about reserves (look at Channel Islands, get local input, look at Pacific Council’s write-up)
• Give input to upcoming socioeconomic study
• Analyze local research projects that could provide useful baseline information and other related research
• Get update on status of fisheries in the Sanctuary
• Get information on status on non-targeted species
• Predict what will happen if reserves are not created

Brock Bernstein and Holly Price met after the workgroup meeting to discuss how to get this work underway.

List of attendees

The following attended the meeting:

AGENDA    top

Alliance of Communities for Sustainable Fisheries

PO Box 1309, Carmel Valley CA 93924 (831) 659-2838

Reserves Study Group

April 30, 2001 — 11:00 am to 3:00 pm

There will be pizza and we will keep going through lunch.