Schwarzenegger Appoints New Commissioner Day Before MLPA Vote

Well folks you demanded this "govenator" when you thought Grey Davis was bankrupting the State and you continue to let a person of no great knowledge continue to let the BIG BUSINESSES and Rich ruin the State. When are you, the taxpayer, going got get off your tushes and dethorne this man?

It seems that the appointment of the new commissioner occurred on Sunday morning, August 2. It also seems the guv left the state at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday August 1. Is it legal to make appointments when out of state?

What of the BRTF, whose input into the process by now has become the stuff of dark mysteries and scandal. They are composed of waterfront real estate (Schem, Andersen, Golding) interests, and oil development (Catherine Reheis-Boyd).

Of course Privatization of Access and Distribution - whether that be for food or energy is the name of the game. also access to the seafloor for SSD, and carbon injection, seafloor microbial communities -Marine biotech, and deep-water aquaculture, mineral mining, thermal currents, WEC devices (for just about anything), naval operations, oil, natural gas, etc.

Nothing Is Off-Limits Except Fishing.
http://www.astral-arts.com/seaweedrebellion.html

But a lot of the promotion of the MLPA - Initiative outside the fishing communities across the state is for 'non-consumptive uses' like sitting on the beach, walking in the tidepools, surfing, hiking on coastal trails and looking at the progress of the recovery of the sea otter.

We're talking tourism, eco-tourism, hotels, full-service marinas, zoning changes....
Some of the advantage to having an underwater park and all the wildlife out there to look at is an increase in property values/taxes and not necessarily local. This has entered the process planning stages in late 2006.

California Department of Fish and Game Master Plan for Marine Protected Areas July 21, 2006 p85 Task force recommendations related to appropriate sources of funds:

1. The primary public source of funding for implementing the MLPA should be general purpose taxpayer funds. Efforts should be made to seek General Fund operating and general obligation bond support for the MLPA.

** Anything can be transferred to the General Fund. The Environmental License Plate Fund: the Tahoe fund, and the Yosemite fund have been paying for MLPA-Initiative implementation.

2. A state statute should be pursued establishing an occupancy tax on lodging in coastal areas, which is a reasonable way to capture benefits from enhanced marine life to fund implementation of the MLPA.

** Like that's gonna fly, but it makes my point as to how this 'Initiative' process views the Coastal Communities, and the California Coast. We are like real estate to them, to be carved up by the masters of privatization and theft of the commons held in trust.

There can be no rush to implement the MLPA-I.

A good archived webcast of the process from last 08 05 09 hearing in Woodland, wherein Sea Lion Cove in Point Arena has been closed to Abalone and Seaweed harvests, shows how Native ancestral seaweed harvest rights and access were closed off in Sonoma County and Mendocino County. People can view the BRTF, that's Blue Ribbon Task Force, as they coldly defy and deny the Stakeholders Group hard worked alternative.

http://www.cal-span.org/cgi-bin/media.pl...

Besides:

Much of the hype surrounding the need for protection results from Worm etal. an often cited work. And what of peer review?

http://californiafisheriescoalition.blogspot....

"Ecosystems examined in this paper account for less than a quarter of the world's fisheries area and catch, and lightly to moderately fished and rebuilding ecosystems comprise less than half of those. They may be best interpreted as large-scale restoration experiments that demonstrate opportunities for successfully rebuilding marine resources elsewhere."

http://www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 316 1 JUNE 2007

IN THEIR IMPORTANT RESEARCH ARTICLE ON THE precarious condition of ocean ecosystems (impacts of biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem services, 3 Nov. 2006, p. 787), B. Worm et al. introduced some confusing terminology that needs to be clarified. Although the term biodiversity is sometimes used to mean the general abundance of life, in publications on conservation biology, it is almost always used to indicate the relative number of species present in a given area or ecosystem.

The conservation problem that the authors intended to emphasize is that the populations of many commercially valuable species have been reduced to the point that they no longer play important roles in the communities to which they belong. Although the phrase population loss may provoke less public reaction than biodiversity loss, it would have been more accurate.

And lest we forget, MAXXAM's Dr John Seidl was hired by the Gordon & Betty Foundation as head of the Foundation Environmental Program, Dr. Seidl oversaw the Foundation's efforts to protect biodiversity and intact natural ecosystems across the globe.

Barry Munitz, #2 at MAXXAM went on to the Getty Trust Foundation. His speech: The Role of Institutions in Leading Public Discourse, "I think the fundamental change has to be a conspiracy between governing boards, the selectors of governing boards and..." is very telling.

Dr. Munitz is a recent a corporate director at Sallie Mae.

That streamlined process so often touted as a hallmark of the MLPA-I process serves what purpose?

The Seaweed Rebellion, Indigenous Healthcare

The trees, the rivers, the salmon, are all one ecosystem. How far up would the Salmon swim if original species of flora canopy closure remained intact? If the Forest Practices rules had actually worked? If MAXXAM logging hadn't destroyed large areas of streambed? If agri-business water alotments were in check with natural ecosystem needs?

Why is it that Barry Munitz' name keeps coming up? Because he was there in the beginning.

#2 in the MAXXAM Empire, Munitz, moved on (to the dismay of many) to be Chancellor of the Regents for the entire UC school system. His claim to fame while there was his attempt to privatize the UC System's information network.

Simultaneous to the selection of Dr. Munitz' as Chancellor, then State Senator Barry Keene introduced and later passed a Senate-Assembly Joint Concurrent resolution that would make the Chancellor of the CSU system the head of a to-be-formed Center for the Resolution of Environmental Disputes. It gets as deep as the ocean!

Also Transition Team Chair, announced 11/9/1998 for Gov Gray Davis

Barry Munitz, directed the Davis transition in 1998 and by early 1999, California Governor Gray Davis signed into law the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA). The MLPA directed the state to design and manage a network of marine protected areas.

About Gov Gray Davis, Munitz's appointment and Democratic "centrism" - in his inaugural, Davis pledged to "preserve our God-given natural heritage" and be "tight with your tax dollars." Davis endorsed Hurwitz's demands whereby the feds and the state of California will pay over $495 million for the Headwaters redwood groves more than three times the value of the property, according to a federal analysis.

http://www.astral-arts.com/mlpa_maxx.html

The MLPA Initiative uses private money, payroll science, and private agendas to perform "governance reform" with no access through Public Information channels. Cultural education through art foundation programs and the use of captive species as 'educational entertainment' at Aquariums (which up and down the State support the tightest MLPA interpretations) are built in to the Initiative process.

The Initiative is on a fast track dictated by business interests from the (private sector). Language for this is included in the G&B Moore Foundation's Initiative Portfolio requirements, and yes, the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation is a foundation through which money and the influence of science as policy flow.

For (y) our part;
Among the Assembly Bill X4 1 - Budget Act of 2009 Revisions

AB X4 1 made numerous changes to the budget bill approved by the Legislature in February.
AB x4 11 - Resources Trailer Bill. This bill includes a number of technical provisions dealing with the state's public resources. It is important to note that this bill was an urgency measure which means it will take effect immediately. Among the issues within this trailer bill of interest to cities are:

2) The bill raises the state's voluntary Environmental License Plate Fund fee by $8 per personalized license plate, increasing the current cost to $48 for new personalized license plates and $38 for renewals of personalized license plates. The fee increase is expected to generate approximately $3 million annually which will be used to offset the state Resource Agency cuts.

http://www.cacities.org/index.jsp...

And what is most disingenuous and telling perhaps is the revolving door relationship between the BRTF and seats on the Fish and Game Commission Final Decision Process, as occurred just in time for the NO vote cast against the Stakeholders 2XA alternative proposal last August 05 2009 in Woodland, CA.

The trees, the rivers, the salmon, are all one ecosystem. How far up would the Salmon swim if original species of flora canopy closure remained intact? If the Forest Practices rules had actually worked? If MAXXAM logging hadn't destroyed large areas of streambed? If agri-business water alotments were in check with natural ecosystem needs? After MAXXAM Dr. Munitz' was UC Chancellor, State Senator Barry Keene introduced and passed a SB-AB Joint Concurrent resolution that made the Chancellor of the CSU system the head of a to-be-formed Center for the Resolution of Environmental Disputes. Barry Munitz, directed the Davis transition in 1998 and by early 1999, California Governor Gray Davis signed into law the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA).

Is The MLPA The Back Door To Oil: Ocean Privatization MLPAI Breaks New Ground for Onshore Facilties... perhaps!

Tomas DiFiore
Seaweed Rebellion
Astral Arts Mendocino

Tomas

Thanks for exposing the sinister connections between the engineers of the MLPA and Maxxam, the oil industry and the rapers and looters of the planet, the corporate privatizers. I find it appalling how the Coastkeeper, Russian Riverkeeper, San Francisco Baykeeper, NRDC, Ocean Conservancy and other "environmental" NGOs are supporting environmental racism and elitism in this process designed to privatize the public trust. You are a real environmentalist - unlike the corporate collaborators that pass themselves as "environmentalists" these days.