Aliance of Communities for Sustainable Fisheries
P O Box 1309, Carmel Valley, CA 93924 (831) 659-2838

June 13, 2001

Dear Alliance Members:
We are writing to you to update you about the work of the Alliance. We have been working primarily in several areas. First, as you will recall, the Alliance was formed to create a central coast organization of fishermen to create a strong voice to the National Marine Sanctuary Program in trying to keep them out of fishery management issues, and also to respond to some other regulatory efforts that are underway. The Alliance has been emphasizing to the Sanctuary that they are not a fishery management agency, however, with the Marine Life Protection Act underway in the State of California, it is acknowledged the Sanctuary needs to respond, somehow, to the recommendations of that Act. Therefore, the Alliance created its own study group on the question of Marine Protected Areas and specifically Marine Reserves (no take zones). The Alliance has formed this study group, and a list of the members is enclosed. You will see that it is primarily a fishing organization, and in fact all the voting members are from the fishing or marine industries. However, the Alliance took this a step farther in also inviting different conservation and science representatives to participate, so the decision making could be fully informed and so that those groups would not feel excluded. This will also give the maximum credibility for the Alliance’s advice to the Sanctuary Program. Therefore, our relationship with the Sanctuary has been positive and productive.

The minutes of the last two Marine Reserves meetings are enclosed to give you an idea of the direction that it is going. Although we are not generally advertising the meetings as space is somewhat limited, anyone wanting to come and listen in is welcome. A good way to keep informed as to the progress of this study group is to consult with the fishing representative from your harbor who is seated on the study group.

Obviously the question of “no fishing zones” can effect different gear types in different ways and in fact for some types of fisheries the debateable value of marine reserves is not immediately obvious. As the study group gets into these questions it is our intention to invite representatives of different gear types in to speak to the group to get a better handle on the impacts/benefits and problems of marine reserves on these gear types. You will also note from the meeting minutes, there is already a great deal of discussion regarding the socio-economic impacts of marine reserves. A full study is being proposed and all gear types would need to respond to the study.

There are also two rounds of public scoping meetings coming up in the near future. The first involves the Marine Life Protection Act, and we believe that the California Department of Fish and Game has mailed a schedule of the meetings to you. We encourage you to attend these meetings. The second set of scoping meetings is in reference to the Management Plan Review for the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. These scoping meetings have been postponed until the late fall or early winter. It will be extremely important that at each of the scoping meetings for the Sanctuary Program that fishermen come in mass to voice your concern about any future regulation by the Sanctuary regarding fishing, and also to voice any concerns you have about marine reserves.

We will do our best to keep you informed when these meeting dates are announced. Lastly, if you know of other people who should be included in the Alliance please have them give Monterey Harbormaster Steve Scheiblauer a call at 831-646-3950 so that he may include those people on our mailing list. I hope you can see that the issues that are unfolding right now are of vital importance to you and that you will need to be involved and pro-active to stay on the winning side of this problem.

Sincerely,

Mike Ricketts, Co-Chair, ACSF

Kathy Fosmark, Co-Chair, ACSF