The North Coast’s three-year Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative process concluded on June 6, 2012, with the State of California formally recognizing and protecting the Tribes’ traditional use of marine resources by establishing a new category for Tribal use in the Fish and Game regulations. A news release was posted by the California Department of Fish & Game at the following link: http://www.fgc.ca.gov/regulations/2012/632ncisor.pdf. The new regulation provides formal recognition and protection for the traditional, non-commercial gathering, harvesting and fishing activities of 23 federally recognized North Coast Tribes within marine and estuarine waters along the coastlines of Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte Counties. Under the new regulation, the Tribes will be authorized to continue their cultural uses in a total of ten new State Marine Conservation Areas (SMCAs) and one new State Marine Recreational Management Area (SMRMA), without the new restrictions on take of living marine organisms that will apply to the general public. It marks the first time the State of California has formally recognized and codified Tribal traditional use of the marine resources that are so vital to the Tribes’ well being and cultural survival, and affirms the fundamental right of the Indigenous Nations of the State’s North Coast to continue their subsistence ways of life in the 3-mile zone of State marine waters.
Attorney Curtis Berkey played a pivotal role in developing a legally enforceable solution accepted by the State, which led to the regulation’s inclusion of the Tribal Use element that will apply to the new SMCAs and SMRMA on behalf of the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council.