Posted by JRM on April 25, 2001 at 17:32:38:
In Reply to: I'll help posted by Steve Clark on April 25, 2001 at 16:57:41:
NOTHING!!!! Absolutely nothing. The channel island reserves are already in motion, now they're just arguing over the closure areas.
The knee-jerk morons got UCSB students involved in an email campaign, and they've pretty much flooded everybody involved with their uninformed pleas. Luckily, these same folks are lazy enough not to show up at the planning meetings. From what I've heard, the meetings have been going very well, and the only people really upset are the squid fisherman, because some of the prime squid grounds are up for closure.
I've got a map somewhere that one of the guys sent me, and it's the current consensus closure areas. Basically, the knee-jerk morons are only interested in area percentages closed, and don't care (and have no valid data anyway) about which areas those are. So several of the "spearo public" have been integral in keeping prime *pelagic* fishing areas open. While they have to ban all take, reserves really don't help pelagics that much, since they aren't sedentary.
So if you really want something to do, dive all the islands, and report back which areas you feel should be closed.
As most things that involve the government, the reserves are a good idea that are needed, but the way their doing them is stupid and futile. They have absolutely no data as to what areas are, so at the planning meetings, anyone who asks for the lines to be moved pretty much gets what they want. Since no one has any reason to object (except for the squid stuff, but that's someones pet thesis area), there isn't any way to argue why it should be closed in the first place. It'll be just like the government to screw this up.
So rest assured, there will be reserves, and they will encompass between 33-50%, because those are the numbers the knee-jerks have pulled out of their (deleted). Luckily for us there is a group of concerned divers who are attempting to at least guide the process. Unluckily for us, there is an armada of commercial fisherman who are doing the same. And even more unfortunately for us, there are no scientific data to support or refute either.
JRM
-- There was a really good article a couple of weeks ago in the Goleta paper. I think I still have a copy. I'll look...