One of the things I am not seeing in the discussion over a new marine sanctuary off our coast is how well are the ones we have working? As written by Lori French (“Unnecessary protection,” Dec. 16) there are four national marine sanctuaries designated in California since 1980. Also, there are 124 state marine protected areas, reserves and preserves, plus another five rock fish conservation areas.
From the point of view of fishermen, all of this coverage is not producing more fish. The promised “spillover affect” hasn’t worked. So what is the answer from government and environmentalists? Just make more. Right. When something is not working, just make more of it. Meanwhile, the price of seafood continues to increase.
When Congress began designating marine sanctuaries, San Luis Obispo County still had commercial and recreational abalone fishing. Pismo Beach still had a clam fishery. The red sea urchin fishery had begun at Port San Luis and soon after became California’s biggest fishery. There were also set-net and trawl fisheries for halibut and rock fish. Now, our local fisheries are a shadow of their former economic powerhouse.
We haven’t gained anything in 50 years, but we have lost 90 percent of our fisheries. Why do we need more of this when it is not working?
Steve Rebuck
San Luis Obispo
This article appears in Dec 23, 2021 – Jan 2, 2022.
I understand this may be frustrating to many folks; but perhaps we should give “government” a year off just to relax and consolidate all of its conflicting regulations and laws. We don’t really need more of them; they make life more difficult, and expensive.
I think the concept of “limited” government has been lost in the incredible focus on new things for the government to do. Perhaps we’d be better off if it just took a breather for a year. Certainly it would be a relief not to have to guess how much our expanding government is going to cost, how many new forms and rules we’re going to have to learn to follow, and to give us a chance to absorb the “new world” offered by the continual and often useless exercises in legislation and regulation which have been adopted in the recent past.