[dgax65]

I have to agree with Rob. To some degree, the outcome was preordained. The law is faulty, so it stands to reason that the process resulting from the law would be flawed. This is what happens when politics takes the place of sound fisheries or wildlife management. The law starts with the position that consumptive users are responsible for the all the ills of the ocean and that only by closing off large areas can this damage be repaired. Fishing didn't cause all the ocean's problems. There are other factors affecting this equation. And, certainly, recreational fishing does not have the same impact as commercial fishing. Even within the broad range of commercial fishing there are varying levels of environmental impact. Repairing the environmental damage would require a very difficult, expensive and multifaceted approach. That's too much heavy lifting for our timid and corrupt legislators. You can't expect them to take actions that might impact their fund raising sources. Instead, we got a law that targets only fishermen, a disparate community that can easily vilified. The environmentalists who pushed this law through the legislature already view all consumptive ocean users as criminals, guilty of crimes against nature. Targeting the consumptive users was easy and effective. The legislators can claim to have taken action on the issue and they don't have to worry about going up against a monolithic political force with lots of resources. So they get a political victory and we get more limits on personal freedom.

We started this process with a guarantee of getting screwed. We knew from the start that we were going to lose some of our best fishing grounds. The very process was rigged against us by the MLPA. All we could do was to try and limit the damage. Seeing what happened on the Central Coast should have been a serious wakeup call. Unfortunately, not enough people got involved. Would it have mattered? I don't know. We have been fighting this battle with facts, science, a gut-level understanding of the potential economic impact and knowledge borne of centuries of combined on-the-water experience. We faced an opponent so convinced of their moral superiority that they felt comfortable disregarding facts, making up rules on the fly, limiting public input and making secret deals to achieve their goals. We were never on a level playing field. No amount of factual data and impassioned pleas would entirely overcome the bad law and its corrupt implementation. All we could hope for is to create enough public outcry to win some small victories. It worked, to a degree, with Rocky Point. How much more could have been achieved with greater involvement of the fishing community will never be known, but we do know that we had some positive impact. Had we not been involved, we would have ended up with half the coast closed off with SMR's.

Thanks to Paul, Tyler, Billy, Chris, Greg and the dozens of others who put so much time and effort into this fight. Without them we would have been completely screwed.

I hope nobody misconstrues my comments as defeatism. I don't want my comments to keep people from being involved. Quite the opposite. I want people to know what we are up against. This isn't the only attack on our freedom and way of life. This is just one battle in a long-running war. There are hundreds of 'environmental' organizations out there; supported by government and private grants, staffed by full-time professional political activists and able to mobilize large numbers of sympathetic supporters (bussed in school kids and the like). We will always be at a disadvantage. That is why we must be more involved. We need to fight these threats. We must get involved early and often if we are to have any hope of turning back the tide. If there is anything to learn from the MLPA process is that we must be vigilant for new threats and we must respond quickly and forcefully; even if the odds are against us.

When I went to that first meeting in Old Town, I was pretty sure that we were going to get screwed by the MLPA process. That didn't stop me from getting involved. When we were making our pleas to limit the economic, safety and cultural impact of closures and Meg was busy chatting on her phone, I knew that the process was just a sham.....but that didn't stop me or many others from speaking our mind. We have to stay involved. Eventually we will turn the tide and our message will take hold. That won't happen if we give up.