Post by Goldenstatecharters on Jun 3, 2020 21:32:47 GMT
Well what has happened up to this point? We have had lots of rhetoric and so many opinions. We have biological opinions and scientific data to support them. We have corporate opinions and the profit and loss statements to support them. We have city, county, state, and federal laws written and signed by our representatives. We have proponents and opponents with their beliefs sounding loudly. We have group's within the fishing community infighting with words and contradictions. We have history speaking for itself. So many words; more so, in fact, than fish! We continue to have studies, we continue to have lawsuits, we have charges and countersuits, cons and counterfeit interests. At any moment, you can find on an internet board (like this) or newspaper stand (if they still exist) articles regarding the studies and lawsuits and general disagreements. All of which, the one thing again, we MUST agree on is that the beneficiary of all this are not the Salmon or Steelhead of California. We must have enough common sense to know that the problems facing our fisheries and commons, with their beauty and their resources, will not be over if the imposition of court orders, stricter regulations, or political intervention and interference in decision-making are indeed successful. These alone cannot and will not solve the problems our California fisheries face. In reality many of these have already made the problem worse and the access to real working solutions more difficult. Solutions will begin to form in a manner in which the fish are indeed the beneficiaries when broad education and public awareness become common knowledge put into practice at the most gr***root level. Awareness, acceptance, and understanding are such that NOW we may be the last generation to have the ability, as stewards of the quality of our California fisheries, to act in a manner that benefits our fish. In doing this we can promote our own quality of life now and well into the future for generations to come after us. California's fisheries management success can and will only come as a corollary to social successes in changing our thinking and our actions at the individual and local community level. The Salmon have never had a voice nor will they ever have one. We as Californians must overcome the desire to point fingers at the special interests group's in California. Because we, the stakeholders of our commons, will clearly always have three fingers pointing back at ourselves. The key to winning acceptance to this ideology, that salmon are important to the quality of life for all Californians lifestyles, is to get all parties and stakeholders to put their own interests behind and begin to bring to the table the interests of the fish, who don't have a voice of their own. I am not seeking,or speaking, to the complete restoration of California wild fisheries (although ideal in its own sense) because no-one who has the most basic common sense or who has the best of biological opinions written today could sit across the bargaining table with a straight face and declare that healthy self-sustaining wild populations of naturally proprogating salmon or steelhead will EVER exist again in the Golden State. However, with that being said, our fisheries are just as important, our fish just as special, and are most certainly just as economically important to Californians when "artificially" raised and "wild" grown. Californians must begin to participate in a process that seeks to accommodate the Salmon's interests, the human stakeholder' s interests, and the environmental impacts from human affairs as one synergistic whole. Wherein each part is not sacrificing the whole discussion about the commons we share because of special interests of its own wants. There are, simply put, not enough natural resources, healthy habitats, and not enough Salmon in our California fisheries to go around that each group of stakeholders will always get what the want from our shared common. Yet, it is vital and absolutely paramount that we recognize that we act right now! The current path we are treading on means certain destruction of our California fisheries and total failure for everyone involved and, in particular, the fish who have no voice.
(TBC Part 5)
"FISH ON" -GSF Admin
-Paul
(TBC Part 5)
"FISH ON" -GSF Admin
-Paul