I wrote the following article for Counterpunch in April 2007 when I covered La Otra Campana (the Other Campaign) of the Zapatistas in Mexico. Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatistas organized a "peace camp" from February to May of 2007 to defend Cucapa Tribe members on the Colorado River Delta against a Marine Protected Area (MPA) like the ones Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's head oil industry lobbyist and corporate "environmentalists" are installing on California's North Coast through the corrupt Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process.

    In the 2-1/2 years since the article was published, an alliance of Schwarzenegger, corporate environmentalists and the Resource Legacy Foundation have pressured the California Fish and Game Commission to ban the Kashia Pomo and other Indian Tribes in Sonoma and Mendocino counties from sustainably harvesting seaweed, abalone and mussels from inter-tidal zones as they have done for centuries. The advocates of "no take" marine zones under the MLPA never showed any respect or consideration for the fishing rights of federally recognized tribes, including the Kashia Pomo.

    The process has now moved to the section of the North Coast from Point Arena to the Oregon border. Fortunately, a broad coalition of grassroots environmentalists, Indian Tribes, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, divers and cities and counties has formed to resist the fast-track MLPA process of Schwarzenegger, the worst governor for fish and the environment in California history.

    We must resist the gross injustice already imposed upon the Kashia Tribe, as well as upon all of the seaweed harvesters, fishermen and abalone divers who were removed from their traditional harvesting areas in Sonoma and Mendocino counties by the politically stacked August vote of the Fish and Game Commission. At the same time, we must prevent the MLPA initiative's plans for cultural genocide - "green" genocide as veteran environmental leader John Lewallen calls it - from succeeding on the North Coast north of Point Arena.

    Like the indigenous and non-indigenous activists from all over the US, Mexico, Latin America and around the world who successfully defended the Cucapa Tribe against attacks by the Mexican government in 2007 and helped assert their right to fish for corvina on the Colorado Delta, we must resist plans by Schwarzenegger and corporate interests to impose no-fishing zones without any respect for the people and cultures of the North Coast.

    As Lester Pinola, past chairman of the Kashia Rancheria, said in a public hearing prior to the commission's August 5 vote, "What you are doing to us is taking the food out of our mouths. When the first settlers came to the coast, they didn't how to feed themselves. Our people showed them how to eat out of the ocean. In my opinion, this was a big mistake."

    Ironically, the same governor who is riding the out-of-control bulldozer of the MLPA process over the fishermen, tribes and communities of the North Coast has presided over the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species on the California Delta. While claiming he is "protecting" the marine ecosystem while removing seaweed harvesters and fishermen from the water in traditional areas, he is constantly campaigning for a peripheral canal and more dams that will push salmon and other imperiled fish species over the abyss of extinction.

    Even more ironically, Schwarzenegger has installed Kathy Reheis-Boyd, executive director of the Western States Petroleum Association, as chairman of the MLPA Ribbon Task Force that is developing the no-take zones for Southern California. What the heck is an oil industry lobbyist doing as head head of the state body that aims to remove fishermen and seaweed harvesters, the strongest opponents of oil drilling, from our coastal waters?

    There is nothing "green" or "environmental" about Schwarzenegger's fast-track MLPA process, since its proponents have gone out of their way to take water pollution, oil drilling, proposed wave energy projects and water diversions, the primary threats to fishery restoration, off the table when developing so-called "marine protected areas." However, this conscious decision by the governor to allow other human activities in "marine protected areas" and to prohibit only fishing may change soon, due to "informal legal advice" regarding the MLPA provided by State Attorney General Jerry Brown.

    The governor's MLPA process is nothing other than classic corporate greenwashing, a bad substitute for desperately needed fish-restoration measures imposed at the expense of Indian Tribes, seaweed harvesters, fishermen and divers.