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December 12, 2001 Meeting Notes

Alliance of Communities for Sustainable Fisheries Marine Reserves Workgroup

*** Reminder — next meeting is Friday, January 18, 10 AM to 2 PM, at the Sanctuary office, 299 Foam Street, Monterey. Contact Brock Bernstein, 805-646-8369, brockb@west.net, with any questions. ***

Please see the list of attendees at the end of the notes.

Review of notes of November 26 meeting

There were no revisions requested to the September 10 notes.

agreed that I should get Fish & Game's recommendations from their meetings and combine them with the focus group recommendations
agreed that at the next meeting we will start with a couple of the easier sites and see if we can't come up with recommendations that meet the criteria
agreed that the site-by-site discussions could provide the focus for soliciting outside input on ecology, fisheries, oceanography, economics, etc.

Review framework for next several meetings

After a short discussion, the workgroup reconfirmed its agreement to use the following framework to organize its work over the next several meetings. The main concern expressed was that the results of socioeconomic studies will not be available for the workgroup to use in its consideration of sites and options. However, the management timelines, particularly for the Sanctuary and MLPA processes, are such that the workgroup must begin developing recommendations now and do the best it can to identify potential socioeconomic impacts and roughly quantify them.

The framework agreed on for the next few Alliance workgroup meetings includes the following steps:

1. establish timeline for developing workgroup products
2. redefine workgroup products in more detail
1. recommendations for MLPA and Sanctuary processes
2. recommendations for socioeconomic studies
3. redefine evaluation criteria for proposed sites
4. develop list of specific recommendations as raw material
5. make any necessary additions, modifications to this list of recommendations
6. evaluate each recommendation against list of criteria
7. obtain and integrate additional fisheries and scientific information as needed
8. identify which group(s) will be helped or hurt economically in each scenario
9. organize this and other information into specific priorities for the socioeconomic studies to look at
10. interact with other groups as needed to build broader agreement
11. consolidate comments and recommendations into "package(s)" for management processes.

This was summarized in the following figure:

Review workgroup agreements

The workgroup reviewed a list of agreements drawn from the minutes of previous meetings. This list was intended as an informal summary to remind workgroup members that they had made important agreements over the past several months and that they had shown themselves able to overcome sometimes substantial differences. Upon review, several workgroup members requested that additional clarifications be added at three places in the minutes of previous meetings.

Review core values

The workgroup reviewed a draft set of core values and agreed to adopt them with a few minor additions. These values will underlie the workgroup’s consideration of specific recommendations about reserves along the central California coast. The list will be posted on the workgroup’s website.

Review evaluation criteria

The workgroup reviewed and agreed to use the revised set of evaluation criteria discussed at the previous meeting. It was agreed that the criteria will serve as a guide to discussion for all proposed reserve sites and site options. However, the criteria will only be worked through systematically and scored where discussion bogs down and the workgroup needs to better identify the sources and extent of disagreement. The evaluation criteria will be posted on the workgroup’s website.

Review available raw material

The workgroup reviewed available raw material related to reserve design, including:

• a summary of the Sanctuary’s letter to Fish & Game
• a summary of the scientific review of proposed MLPA sites commissioned by NRDC and WWF
• a summary of the HMBFMA draft policy statement
• a summary of site-by-site information, concerns, and recommendations from the Alliance focus group meetings.

The workgroup agreed that the site-by-site summary, which will be posted on the workgroup’s website, was a very useful tool and that it should be expanded to include information from the series of meetings organized by Fish & Game.

Next steps

The facilitator will obtain comments from the Fish & Game meeting and merge them with comments from the Alliance’s focus group meetings.

The next meeting will focus on applying the evaluation criteria to one or two of the easier sites and attempting to resolve the concerns related to those sites. This process may suggest adjustments that need to be made to the evaluation criteria. In addition, it may highlight the need to solicit information from outside experts in fisheries, ecology, oceanography, economics, etc.

The next meeting will be on Friday, January 18, from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, at the Sanctuary office at 299 Foam Street, Monterey.

Attendees

The following attended the meeting. Alliance workgroup members identified with an asterisk (*).

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

Reserves Study Group

December 12, 2001 — 10:00 am to 2:00 pm

The meeting will be at the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary’s office at 299 Foam Street in Monterey. Please call Brock Bernstein (805) 646-8369 or Holly Price (831) 647-4247 with any questions.

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