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MONTEREY BAY KELP FORESTS
I have been Co-Chair for the Pacific Grove-based grass roots group
The Tidepools Coalition since 1998 and am also a steering group
member for the Ricketts Marine Reserve in Monterey (not a reserve
yet, but we're working towards that goal).
As a long time diver in this area I have seen some alarming things
out in our kelp forests, and my "baseline" is only some
30 years or so, but I can remember even in the early 90's seeing
vibrant schools of rockfish out off the southern shore of Monterey
Bay in the giant kelp forests, at Chase Reef, for example, but today,
it is very hard to find a mature rockfish out there -- all this
noticeable in 10 years -- and, depressingly, it was 10 years ago
when the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary was formed. In contrast,
you can go over to nearby Point Lobos State Reserve and see healthy
schools of rockfish -- and other fish species are there in greater
abundance as well -- a very powerful example of how marine reserves
really do work. Diving in Pt. Lobos Reserve is like diving in a
markedly different kelp forest ecosystem -you just seem to see more
of everything out there.
We had hoped for better results from the Sanctuary, but it unfortunately
is misnamed -- it really isn't a Sanctuary in the traditional sense
of the word-- formed under the Department of Commerce (not the Dept.
of Interior like our National Parks) it has to wear a "commerce"
hat more often than a "conservation" hat, in my opinion.
That's where grassroots work is very important off the Central California
Coast (and our entire 1,100 mile coast for that matter) -- but Randy's
excellent article struck a chord for me as this is exactly what
we've been trying to convey to folks up here (and I believe we are
gaining support) -- this past year, two of our people, Jim Willoughby
(the Tidepools Coalition Chair) and Susan Goldbeck (the Coalition's
pro-bono legal counsel) were nominated to the State's Marine Life
Protection Act (MLPA) advisory panel for this region -- they, with
other local stakeholders, will be helping to determine where and
how to implement a system of new marine reserves off our Central
California Coast, and we are as hopeful as ever that at least two
of these reserves will be nominated for the southern coast of Monterey
Bay. Susan was also elected to the Pacific Grove City Council last
November and we now have a conservation- friendly new mayor here
as well (our former mayor was non-supportive of our efforts, to
say the least) which will make a tremendous difference in the outcome
for us.
As crazy as this sounds, early on in our efforts to help restore
the tidelands at Pt. Pinos, our biggest force of opposition was
the Montery Bay Aquarium which has for many years used the area
as a stockhouse to supply its numerous tanks for display purposes
and as food for display animals; it has also in the past harvested
for trade and barter to other Aquariums, and our old mayor was not
about to do anything the Aquarium didn't want -- but all that has
changed now, and in fairness to the Aquarium, they have agreed to
not collect out at Pt. Pinos for the interim, and we hope they will
actually be supportive of a no-take reserve out there in the future.
We have had three meetings with the MBA in recent months to see
how we can work together and come to terms -- we're not out of the
woods yet, but I am encouraged at this point. Wish us luck! It is
amazing (as Randy in similar fashion has pointed out in his article)
how people can go out off Pt. Pinos and look with awe at the marvelous
seascape there (and it is still breathtaking), but you have to tell
them -- "Hey, (as my neighbor who is about 70 now and grew
up here says) you should have seen this place when I was a kid!"
Certainly we can attribute some changes to global climate fluctuations,
but we can also attribute a great deal of the detrimental effects
to human activities/impacts. -
Chuck Davis, Monterey, California
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