No-fishing zone off Laguna: activists say protection is needed
Pat Brennen
OC Register
09/11/2009
As the small plane made a broad curve out of John Wayne Airport and down the Orange County coast, Ray Hiemstra of the Orange County Coastkeeper rattled off the familiar names of coves and bays and beaches scrolling beneath him like a giant, 3-D map. mlpaslide
Hiemstra was one of 64 stakeholders who worked for a year to create proposed habitat protection zones off the Southern California coast known as marine protected areas, or MPAs. This week, the stakeholders produced their last set of three maps — all of them including a miles-long zone off Laguna Beach that would be closed to fishing.
It could be another year before new protection areas for Southern California gain approval.
“Upper Newport Bay — this is one of the areas that will be an MPA,” Hiemstra said during the flight, taken late last month. “Estuaries are a very high priority.”
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Environmental activists and conservationists clashed with members of the fishing community during the map-making process, both within the stakeholder group and outside it.
The two camps appear to have vastly different ideas about how badly coastal marine habitat needs protecting, and how much such protection could hurt the coastal economy.
And a variety of protection levels will likely be applied to different parts of the coast. Some, like the state Marine Reserves marked in red, would allow no “take” of marine resources, such as fishing. Boats could still move through the areas and anchor there.
