A group of 70 people, including environmentalists, seaweed harvesters, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, abalone divers, and Native Americans, gathered at the city hall in Point Arena on Saturday, June 13 to begin the “Seaweed Rebellion” to halt or at least slow down the corrupt fast-track Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process being pushed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and “Big Green” environmental groups.

The residents of Point Arena, a small fishing town located off the gorgeous Mendocino County coast south of Fort Bragg, have played a powerful role in past battles to stop offshore oil drilling and the clear cutting of redwood forests. Now they are uniting to stop a process that they says is riddled with conflict of interest and mission creep and will remove sustainable seaweed harvesters and fishermen from the Point Arena in order to pave the way for offshore oil drilling, wave energy projects and corporate aquaculture. “Don’t underestimate us,” said Craig Bell, chair of the Mendocino County Fish and Game Advisory Commission, who moderated the event. “We’ve been giant killers before in Point Arena.”

He emphasized that the MLPA process has been expanded from a $250,000 process, as originally intended when the law passed in 1999, to an out of control $25 to $40 million financial boondoggle. “This is all while we are seeing precious cuts in our heath care, schools and parks,” said Bell. “The irony is that the MLPA is setting up no-take parks off shore while on land our parks are being closed.”

He noted that the largest de facto marine protected area in U.S. history, the Rockfish Conservation Zone, now extends along the entire continental shelf of California including the Mendocino Coast. “We are being told by Mike Chrisman, Resources Secretary, that this is one of most inclusive processes ever,” said Bell. “But there’s a difference between being part of a bottom up process and being processed by a top down process as we are.”