California coastal watchdog OKs Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary

SAN DIEGO — The U.S. is one step closer to having a new national marine sanctuary off the coast of California’s San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties after the state’s coastal stewardship agency told its federal counterpart on Wednesday that draft proposals for the sanctuary are consistent with state law. 

“This is a very important day for us,” said Violet Sage Walker, chairwoman of the Northern Chumash Tribal Council, at the California Coastal Commission’s monthly meeting on Thursday. “It’s an essential opportunity to uplift tribal collaborative management to protect cultural resources, safeguard precious ecosystems and communities, and help foster sustainable relationships between people and the ocean.”

Run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and an office called the National Ocean Service, national marine sanctuaries are akin to national parks or national seashores for swaths of the Pacific and Atlantic and the Great Lakes. 

If the sanctuary, dubbed the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, is given final approval, anywhere from 4,400 to 7,600 square miles of ocean water off the Central Coast will be protected from oil and gas drilling, discharges of toxic materials like sewage from cruise ships, and people moving animals or cultural artifacts from the area. 

That’s great, supporters say, for conservation efforts and the protection of animals that live and migrate through the waters, like California scorpionfish, Pacific sleeper sharks, and black footed albatross. But the sanctuary will also protect cultural heritage and sacred sites important to local Native American groups, and give them a seat at the table to work with the state and federal governments after centuries of destroying and ignoring tribal sovereignty. 

The sanctuary's borders remain up for debate. 

Michael Murray the deputy sanctuary superintendent at NOAA’s Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, presented multiple maps of different boundary lines Thursday. One map connects the area to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary to the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary down to Gaviota, while another shrinks the area down to south of Point Buchon to Gaviota. 

Where the boundaries are, especially if they include the coastline around Morro Bay, is controversial. 

The areas offshore of Morro Bay is an important and productive area for the fishing industry according to Tom Hayford, a fisherman from the area. 

Hayford told the commission he doesn’t think there should be a sanctuary in the area, especially because it seems like they’re trying to “protect” the area from the fishing industry and carve out exemptions that benefit foreign offshore wind development companies, which is the biggest threat to the ocean. 

Murray said the agency takes the concern of the fishing industry seriously, and that no new regulations will be imposed on the industry if the sanctuary is established. 

The question of renewable energy development in the area and if there will be electrical transmission cables in the ocean, remains unclear. Some of the boundary maps include gaps in the sanctuary or exclude the Morro Bay area entirely to leave room for offshore wind farms to lay transmission cables. 

Some commentators, like Gianna Patchen, the chapter coordinator for Sierra Club’s Santa Lucia chapter, described the sanctuary, and environmental, tribal, and renewable energy groups working together, as a “vital example that environmental justice, conservation, and renewable energy can and must work together to address the climate crisis.”

The proposed name of the sanctuary is another source of controversy. 

“At this point, the proposed name is not only historically inaccurate, but it also continues to perpetuate the false narrative that the central coast of California from the Channel Islands to the Monterey County border is the home to only one homogenized culture, the Chumash culture,” wrote the Salinan Tribe of Monterey and San Luis Obispo Counties, in a letter sent to NOAA last year. “As for Salinan culture, our culture is widely regarded as well traversed all throughout San Luis Obispo County and coastline.” 

They have no malice for the Chumash, the letter continues, they’re just asking for respect, and an inclusive compromise that doesn’t just leave out the Morro Bay from the sanctuary. 

Inclusive names like the Pacific Coast Tribal Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, the Chumash/Salinan Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, the Indigenous Peoples Heritage National Marine Sanctuary, or the Central Coast Indigenous Heritage National Marine Sanctuary would preserve historical accuracy and cultural dignity to the sanctuary project, the tribe wrote.  

“Every generation claims they will right the wrongs of the past. Yet every generation for the last 250 years has blindly repeated the sins of the past when it comes to native indigenous cultures,” the tribe added. 

Murray said that the agency is aware of the controversy over the name and is working with respect and sensitivity about the issue as the project moves forward. 

The agency, he added, wants to form an advisory group of different tribal groups as the project moves into the next stages. 

Commissioner Justin Cummings said as a biologist, seeing these kinds of environmental protection projects are the things he likes to see. 

“I guess it’s just a way for us to inspire future generations so that they know that if they work hard at something, together, we can protect our environment for future generations,” he said.

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