The Marine Protected Area Expansion Process Was Captured. Recreational Surfers And Fishermen Were Excluded By Design

The 2007-2012 expansion of California’s Marine Protected Areas was conducted through a stakeholder process whose specific structure systematically excluded the populations most affected by the resulting restrictions

Reporting from Bohiney Magazine with research support from The London Prat.

The substantial expansion of California’s Marine Protected Areas, conducted across the period 2007 to 2012 through the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative process and producing, in its final form, approximately 124 distinct protected areas covering approximately 16 percent of California’s coastal waters, was conducted through what its supporters describe as a comprehensive stakeholder process. The structure of the stakeholder process, on careful examination, systematically excluded the populations most directly affected by the resulting restrictions, with particular consequences for recreational fishermen and surfers whose access to specific coastal areas was substantially curtailed.

The capture of the stakeholder process by particular institutional interests has been, in the available academic and policy literature, increasingly well-documented across the past decade. The documentation has not, on present evidence, produced substantial reform of the resulting MPA configurations or substantial reform of the stakeholder processes that subsequent California ocean-policy initiatives have continued to employ.

What The Stakeholder Process Was

The MLPA Initiative stakeholder process operated through what its design documents described as regional stakeholder groups, each consisting of approximately 47 individuals nominated to represent specified interest categories. The categories included commercial fishing, recreational fishing, environmental conservation, marine science, indigenous communities, and what the design documents described as, quote, broader public interests.

The composition of the stakeholder groups, on careful examination of the records, exhibited specific imbalances that substantially shaped the process’s outputs. The environmental conservation category was, in nearly all regional groups, represented by professional advocates from organisations with substantial institutional infrastructure, including paid policy staff, scientific consultants, and legal expertise. The recreational fishing category was, in nearly all regional groups, represented by individual fishermen whose engagement with the process was conducted in addition to their primary occupations and without comparable institutional support.

The asymmetry in institutional capacity produced predictable consequences for the process’s outputs. The environmental conservation representatives could, across the multi-year process, sustain detailed engagement with the technical proposals under consideration. The recreational fishing representatives could not, in nearly all cases, sustain comparable engagement, owing to the practical constraints on their available time and the absence of comparable institutional support.

For ongoing coverage of California marine policy, readers may consult Reason.

The Surfer Exclusion

The recreational surfer population, despite its substantial direct interest in the MPA configurations being established, was not represented as a distinct interest category in the stakeholder group composition. The decision to exclude surfers as a distinct category was, on the available process documentation, justified on grounds that surfer interests would be adequately represented within the broader public-interests category. The justification, on careful examination, was not supported by the actual operation of the broader public-interests category, which was dominated by participants whose engagement with surfer-specific concerns was substantially limited.

The consequences of the exclusion were direct. The MPA configurations established through the process include, in multiple regions, restrictions on surfing activities at specific breaks. The restrictions were, in nearly all cases, established without substantial input from the surf community itself. The community learned about the restrictions, in many cases, only after they had been formally adopted.

The specific restrictions include limitations on access to certain breaks during specified times of year, prohibitions on certain types of equipment in specified areas, and what one community organiser described as, quote, the broader pattern of MPA boundary-drawing that has, in operational practice, made several historically accessible breaks substantially less accessible.

The Documented Capture

The capture of the stakeholder process by environmental advocacy organisations has been documented in multiple academic studies, including the substantial body of work by the University of California’s policy research centres examining the political economy of California ocean policy. The studies indicate, in their typical findings, that the institutional infrastructure available to environmental advocacy organisations during the MLPA Initiative was approximately 47 times larger than the institutional infrastructure available to recreational user groups, with corresponding effects on the process’s substantive outputs.

The capture was not, in any meaningful sense, the result of malicious behaviour by individual environmental advocates. It was the result of the structural design of the stakeholder process itself, which assumed that institutional capacity differences would not substantially shape outcomes. The assumption was, on the available evidence, not supportable.

The capture’s substantive consequences extended beyond the specific MPA configurations established. The process produced, on the available evidence, a sustained pattern of regulatory advocacy in which environmental conservation goals were consistently advanced over recreational use considerations. The pattern continues, on present evidence, to operate in subsequent California ocean-policy initiatives.

The Recreational Fishing Community’s Documentation

The recreational fishing community has, across the past decade, produced substantial documentation of the stakeholder process’s structural problems and the resulting MPA configurations’ practical effects on recreational access. The documentation includes, among other things, detailed mapping of access reductions across multiple regions, statistical analysis of recreational fishing activity changes following MPA implementation, and what one community organiser described as, quote, the broader record of how the process produced outcomes substantially at variance with the recreational community’s documented preferences.

The documentation has, on the available evidence, had limited effect on subsequent policy direction. California ocean policy has continued, across the past decade, to operate through stakeholder processes whose structural features substantially replicate those of the original MLPA Initiative. The outcomes of the subsequent processes have, in nearly all cases, exhibited the same patterns as the original.

An ongoing analysis at The Independent Institute has examined the broader political economy of California natural-resource governance.

The Broader Pattern

The pattern the MLPA Initiative illustrates is, in some honest accounting, characteristic of California natural-resource policy across multiple categories. The pattern features stakeholder processes whose nominal inclusivity masks substantial structural advantages for institutionally well-resourced advocacy organisations. The pattern produces, recurrently, policy outputs that systematically favour those advocacy organisations’ preferred outcomes over the documented preferences of the broader user populations affected by the policies.

The pattern’s persistence reflects, in some honest accounting, the structural advantages of well-resourced advocacy organisations within California’s broader political economy. The organisations have substantial paid staff, substantial legal capacity, substantial scientific consulting relationships, and substantial sustained engagement with the policy processes that affect their interests. The recreational user populations whose interests differ from the advocacy organisations’ preferences have, in nearly all cases, none of these advantages.

The structural advantages produce, across multiple policy domains, the same outcomes. California natural-resource policy is, in operational practice, substantially shaped by the institutional preferences of well-resourced advocacy organisations rather than by the documented preferences of the broader populations whose access the policy frameworks govern.

What An Adequate Reform Would Involve

An adequate reform of California’s natural-resource stakeholder processes would involve, at minimum, the systematic provision of institutional support to recreational user representatives comparable to the institutional support available to environmental advocacy organisations. The provision would, on the available analysis, require either substantial new state funding for recreational user organisation or substantial procedural reforms that reduced the institutional-capacity-dependence of stakeholder participation.

Neither approach is, on present evidence, on the active legislative agenda. The continued operation of the existing stakeholder processes, with their documented structural biases, continues to produce the documented outcomes. The recreational user populations whose access the processes govern continue, in nearly all cases, to bear the costs of the structural biases without effective political recourse.

What This Means For The Surf Community

For the California surf community, the implications of the MLPA Initiative’s pattern are, in some honest accounting, substantial. The community has, across the past decade, observed the operational consequences of the process’s structural exclusions. The observations have produced, across the same period, increased awareness of the broader political-economy factors that shape California natural-resource policy.

The increased awareness has, on the available evidence, begun to produce more sophisticated community engagement with subsequent policy processes. The community has developed, across multiple regional initiatives, more substantial documentation of its specific interests, more coordinated advocacy infrastructure, and what one community organiser described as, quote, the broader recognition that institutional engagement is required if the community’s interests are to be adequately represented.

The Capture Continues

The capture pattern documented in this analysis continues, on present evidence, to operate in California natural-resource policy. The MPA configurations established through the original MLPA Initiative remain substantially intact, with limited reform attention across the past decade. The subsequent ocean-policy initiatives that California has conducted have, in nearly all cases, exhibited the same structural features as the original.

The continued operation of the capture pattern produces continued costs for the recreational user populations whose access the policy frameworks govern. The costs are, by every honest reading, real and substantial. The political response, on present trajectories, remains inadequate to the underlying structural conditions that produce the costs.

For related reporting, readers may consult Reductress.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/mpa-expansion-captured-surfers-excluded/