Alliance of Communities for Sustainable Fisheries Demonstrate Lack of Transparency in Federal MPA Program

The  Alliance of Communities for Sustainable Fisheries demonstrate the lack of transparency in the federal MPA program. The Alliance states:

“Our experience is that the Federal guidelines for nomination and acceptance into the Federal MPA system allowed for all of these mistakes to happen without comment.  If the above list of problems with the California MPA system were put into question form, to serve as an analysis for future inclusion into the Federal Network, then this might be a place to begin in fleshing out some real criteria; i.e. “What credible evidence has been provided that there is widespread community support for the MPA Network, including support from those who seemingly have a direct cost in providing for the MPA?”, etc.:”

The Alliance also makes an important addition to the CRE analysis of MPAs:

“Regarding the National Marine Sanctuary standard for designation of a Sanctuary, we agree that this is a more thorough process than what is proposed by the National MPA Center.  However, a distinction needs to be made between a designation process for the Sanctuary, which requires an EIS and a wide variety of public support, from the way in which the National Marine Sanctuaries may be managed on a day to day basis.  For the routine management of the Sanctuaries, this is where in our opinion, the high standard breaks down.  We note that when queried, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary could not supply any metric as to the degree to which its own regulations meet the policies and purposes of the National Marine Sanctuary Act. ”

See Alliance comments attached.