January 21, 2009
Any North County or southern Baja vet most likely has run into Garth Murphy intensely evaluating surf conditions from shore and gracefully riding the best waves of the season. A California icon who partnered with Mike Doyle and Rusty Miller in their infamous and pioneering Surf Research company, Garth is the author of the epic novel of California, The Indian Lover, and the son of noted fisheries biologist Garth I. Murphy, who was La Jolla's Scripps Institute of Oceanography's first PhD, and a professor at the University of Hawaii.
Garth, who has lived, surfed and advocated for coastal and marine protection in Hawaii, Australia and Baja California is now a member of the California Department of Fish and Game's Marine Life Protection Act Initiative (MLPAI) Regional Stakeholder Group.
The group is actively pushing a collaborative process to strengthen marine conservation off of the coast of Southern California through the establishment of a network of marine protected areas (MPAs). These proposed reserves would conserve key marine ecosystems such as kelp beds, reefs, sea grass beds--or the ecological features that provide the foundation for some of our very best waves. When you think of Sunset Cliffs, Trestles, Windansea, Swami's, Big Rock, Cardiff Reef, Rincon, Malibu, and Blacks (and the list goes on) you can't escape the fact that all are not only key surf spots, but also critical coastal and marine ecosystems.
I caught up with Garth at the MLPAI meeting on January 14th at the Holiday Inn across the street from the Star of India and San Diego Bay. In between talking with Surfrider activist Stefanie Sekich and women's pro surfing pioneer Debbie Beacham about keeping surf spots pristine forever, Garth had time for an interview about why surfers, more than any other recreational ocean user group in Southern California, need to be pushing the MPA banner.
Why should surfers care about marine conservation and creating MPAs in Southern California?
Because we have 300 wave-rich surf-spots to choose from and over a million Southern California surfers average 20 surfs a year - for 20 million yearly immersions in what usually happen to be our ocean's most bio-diverse coastal marine habitats. The Marine Life Protection Act recognizes traditional surfing as a compatible recreational use of the ocean resource, permitted in protected areas except at mammal haul-outs, bird roosts and estuaries. A network of Marine Protected Areas, by protecting and conserving complete coastal ecosystems and habitat, enhances the biodiversity and abundance of marine life, enriching our experience, while minimizing and controlling potential habitat-destructive human activities, which directly affect us.
"A network of Marine Protected Areas, by protecting and conserving complete coastal ecosystems and habitat, enhances the biodiversity and abundance of marine life, enriching our experience, while minimizing and controlling potential habitat-destructive human activities, which directly affect us."
Murphy, on how preserving our marine heritage in Southern California benefits surfers
Why is preserving marine ecosystems of Southern California so important for surfers?
Southern California surfers and marine life share natural coastal ocean habitats of every important class: estuaries and river mouths, beaches and inter-tidal zones, surf grass and eel grass beds on composite reefs like Cardiff; rare cobble reefs like Trestles, Rincon and Malibu; rocky reefs like Windansea and Laguna; submarine canyons like Blacks, and sand bars at Newport and Pacific Beach; as well as man-made habitats like the Piers at Huntington and Imperial Beach, rock jetties like the Wedge and Hollywood by the Sea, and artificial reefs. As a boon to surfers, thick coastal kelp forest canopies, which shelter the greatest biodiversity of coastal marine species, also protect us from the afternoon winds, refining ocean surface texture and grooming the swells to extend our surfing hours - and the carrying capacity of affected surf spots. Habitat based marine protected areas preserve everything within their boundaries, including our cherished surf spots.
What about water quality? Would marine reserves help our efforts to keep beaches free from polluted runoff?
Coastal ocean water quality is not just a function of land pollution runoff. Over-exploitation and depletion or collapse of important food-web components causes imbalances that degrade marine ecosystems and make the ocean more vulnerable to disease outbreaks and opportunistic invasive species like stinging jellyfish, algae blooms and toxic red tides, diminishing water quality and habitat suitability for marine life and surfers. On the contrary, robust, bio-diverse marine ecosystems with intact food webs are resilient, resisting and adapting to environmental change and pollution, maintaining water and habitat quality. Estuaries are marine life nurseries, fresh/salt water interfaces that empty into many of our finest surf spots. We absorb that same water through our eyes, ears, nose and mouths on duck-dives and wipeouts. Rebuilding and maintaining bio-diverse estuaries with a full range of marine life creates healthier nurseries, and encourages upstream compliance with pollution regulations. The result is better water quality for all of us.
So in the end, how does preserving our marine heritage in Southern California benefit surfers?
The California surfing style evolved in a unique marine environment of glassy peeling waves. This stylish surfing and our beach lifestyle have become an important part of California history and culture - and media focus - generating an endless wave of glossy-color surf magazines, surf videos and feature films. The success of the $7+ billion surfing industry, centered in Southern California, depends on maintaining the high cultural value of the traditional California Surfing Experience: As exciting, invigorating exercise, as a get-away, as a sport, a meditation, a dance, a family get-together and photo opportunity - enhanced by a vibrantly alive and healthy ocean.
The ocean is Earth's largest and most accessible enduring wilderness. Regular contact with wilderness is a human, and especially American cultural value, manifested today in the ocean by the popularity of surfing. A full and abundant spectrum of marine species - from whales to hermit crabs to phytoplankton - is an integral part of our ocean-wilderness experience.
Marine Protected Areas enhance ecosystem awareness by exposing us to a broad diversity of marine life. They encourage monitoring of potential problems and upstream compliance with complementary air and water quality regulations. The positive water quality and life-giving effects of marine protected areas are a valuable gift to the surfers and marine species who share them.
Serge Dedina is the Executive Director of WiLDCOAST and a longtime Imperial Beach surfer. He received the SIMA Environmentalist of the Year Award in 2003 and is this year's recipient of the San Diego Zoological Society's Conservation in Action Award. For more information on marine protected areas check out www.wildcoast.net or contact Serge at info@wildcoast.net.
Want to see more from San Diego? Click here to go to the Surfline San Diego archive. Comments: (11) Add Your Comment Adam Sachs 01/26/2009 09:46 PM * PREMIUM MEMBER - Real Name
As a surfer, freedive spearfisherman, and proponent of overall ocean health I was disappointed and offended that Surfline chose to run Mr. Murphy’s interview which failed to highlight the devastating effects the proposed MPAs would have on recreational hook and line fishing and spearfishing; activities which thousands of surfers enjoy. Mr. Murphy fails to acknowledge that many of California’s early surfing icons actively fished and spearfished in Southern, CA as recreational anglers for many years and this legacy is threatened due to the proposed MPAs
Jacob Horne 01/26/2009 09:33 PM * PREMIUM MEMBER - Real Name
Anyone who reads this article and the following comments should do themselves a favor and research both sides of the debate. I was unsure of which side was right, but after a little bit of reading and some thinking about the effect MPA's have on people who love the ocean as much as surfers do it became obvious that this editiorial is misleading and wrong. I am disapointed in surfline. Last month Black's was fine with spearfishermen down in the cove. This article is kooky shi!t.
Boyd Elder 01/26/2009 06:59 PM
surfider needs to focus on pollutin controll and beach acess, not marine biology issues.
Boyd Elder 01/26/2009 06:58 PM
i intend to raise my sons with the same high degree of respect for the ocan that I have. saying MLPA's promote a california ocean lifestyle is just not true. Paerhaps an article spelling out nhow surfings pioneers spent enormous amounts of time surfing, fishing and spearfishing might be more in order. If harvest levels are unsastainable, changes in bag limits.slot limits/sizes should be implemented, not wholesale closures of valued fishing grounds.
Boyd Elder 01/26/2009 06:56 PM
Dear surfline editor, im a little disturbed to see your pro MLPA article in surfline. Something the article didn't mention was that the MLPA's will have the effect of shifting all the comercial and recreational harvest preasure on only a few areas, which will have a very negative impact on the fishery. i am a dedicated califonia watermen. I surf, spearfish, kayak, and spend every availble minute of freetime involved in recreation in our beloved Pacific.
Danny Jones II 01/26/2009 06:46 PM
Please see that your ocean will be taken away from you too. There will be no win for surfers, only loss of use for us all, to apease a select few with an extremist view. Know what you are fighting for and you will change this editorial.
Danny Jones II 01/26/2009 06:45 PM
As a freedive spearfisherman, I enjoy the ocean as much as any surfer, perhaps even more, as I glide beneath the waves, marveling at the oceans beauty and abundance. Speafishing has the lowest impact and take ratio of all fishing methods, with a 0% by catch rate. We are the cleanest, most quiet and most selective of all consumptive fishermen. The MLPA's want to take away your recouces as an American, never to return them to you, and have no funding to manage these closures afterwards.
Danny Jones II 01/26/2009 06:43 PM
Your recent article on MLPA's has an affect on all watermen, divers, fishermen, hoopnetters, children not to mention the people who earn there living from the ocean. These MLPA closures are funded by those who want no fishing whatsoever anywhere, anytime. This will affect tackle stores, sellers of bait, recreational as well as commercial fishermen, all the freedivers and scuba divers, plus all the infrastructure that their fishing supports.
01/26/2009 06:41 PM
What if the next step is that we can't have people crossing into the tidal zone and impacting the creatures at the surfs edge? Do you get to keep your spots but screw everybody else? Be it the fisherman,divers, kayakers and so on? You don't close down an entire mountain range to save a groundhog! That is whats going on here! This is to replentish ocean resources. Closed forever! Please do a little research on your own and see the BIG picture!
01/26/2009 06:40 PM
I can't believe the article regarding Garth Murphy's lopsided view on MLPA closures! Or that you"Surfline" would post them! I am a waterman in my own right and am fighting to keep closures to a minimum. Some of these closures will have an impact on surf spots as well. If some beach closures push others to your surf spots; what does that do to overcrowding your existing spots?
surferandfisherman 01/26/2009 06:37 PM
how does recreational fishing disturb the ecosystems inside the surf zone? the only real way to harm it with fishing is to surf fish, which is not as common as offshore fishing. we surfers make as much of an impact just by walking out on the reef before we jump on our boards to paddle out! i think we should focus on the japanese fishermen who fin sharks and destroy local populations of fish and worldwide populations of tuna. the mlpa is ridiculous!
Add Your Comment:
THE DARKHORSE: With the laws that removed gill nets years ago, It should be obvious that fish stocks are on the rise, thriving is a more accurate term that should be used, especially in places like La Jolla.
01-26-2009, 11:05 PM
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