Dozens of Bolinas residents traveled last week to the San Mateo Elks Lodge, where the California Fish and Game Commission heard over two hours of testimony on a contested petition that could alter access to Duxbury Reef.
Many commenters condemned the proposal as an assault on a place they described as central to the town’s food system, economy and identity.
The five-member commission, which will have the final say over a raft of proposed changes to the state’s marine protected areas, is not expected to vote before late summer.
As the hearing unfolded, a central dispute emerged: whether a narrowed version of the proposal for Duxbury represents a workable compromise or an unfair concession from a community whose fishing economy and culture have already been squeezed.
The petition is one of 20 submitted as part of California’s first decadal review of its M.P.A. network, a system of 124 underwater parks strung along the state’s 1,100-mile coastline. Submitted by the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin, it originally asked the state to reclassify the Duxbury Reef State Marine Conservation Area as a more restrictive state marine reserve, which would prohibit fishing and other take, and extend its boundaries north to Double Point and south to a stretch of intertidal zone. The changes would roughly triple the area regulated by the state.
Last month, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife recommended denying the reclassification, but it endorsed the two boundary expansions “in concept,” leaving the commission to decide where the new lines, if any, should fall.
Ashley Eagle-Gibbs, E.A.C.’s executive director, told commissioners her organization supports the recommendation. The compromise, she said, would focus on protecting the rocky intertidal zone while avoiding impacts to offshore fishing.
“We still do believe that a fully protected reserve is what’s best for the ecosystem,” she said, “but taking the department’s recommendations into account, as well as the local shore fishing activity, we’re choosing to support a balanced approach.”
To many from Bolinas, the word “compromise” rang hollow.
“I keep hearing the word ‘compromise,’” Jeremy Dierks, a commercial fisherman for more than 40 years in Bolinas, told the commission. “I’ve compromised my livelihood pretty much to nonexistence.”
Commercial fishing is already prohibited inside the Duxbury conservation area. The concern among fishermen is that expanding its boundaries would extend those restrictions into nearby waters they still use.
At the speakers’ table, Mr. Dierks unfolded a large map and pointed to the proposed northern expansion, which he said would eliminate what remains of his halibut fishing grounds. The original M.P.A. process, he said, had already cost the Bolinas fleet half its halibut grounds off Point Reyes and all its rockfish grounds off the Farallon Islands.
Commissioner Samantha Murray pressed both sides on whether a line drawn closer to the intertidal zone could avoid impacts to commercial anglers. Mr. Dierks said halibut often chase prey toward the breakers, and fishermen follow them close to shore.
The hearing laid bare a central question in the decadal review: whether the state’s marine protected areas should be adjusted to close ecological gaps identified by conservation groups, or whether adaptive management should honor the bargains struck when the network was created.
In the original North Central coast planning process, which culminated in the implementation of M.P.A.s in 2010, regional stakeholders—fishermen, conservationists, scientists and recreational users—negotiated where the areas should be placed and what levels of use should be allowed.
The petition process is new, and commission staff said it is unlikely to be repeated in the same form after consuming much of the Fish and Wildlife’s M.P.A.-related work for over two years.
Melinda Griffith, who lives above the reef and volunteers there as a docent with the E.A.C., argued that the commission was breaking its own rules. In February 2024, it adopted a policy calling for meaningful engagement with affected coastal communities in its decision-making.
“The E.A.C. petition is not a community-informed approach and does not have broad community support,” she said.
Multiple speakers said the E.A.C. had not shown that further restrictions were supported by science. David Ainley, a marine ecologist, said a 20-year U.C. Santa Cruz study inside the existing conservation area found no long-term change in the reef’s mix of species, aside from the effects of sea star wasting disease.
“Taking action in the absence of scientific data only enforces the growing public perception that science is a waste,” he said.