CA Fish and Game Commission Votes to Protect Sensitive Coastline Areas 

SACRAMENTO  – The California Fish and Game Commission today voted to approve the Mishopshno and Point Sal State Marine Conservation Areas off the Santa Barbara County coast. These new marine protected areas (MPAs), essentially underwater parks, are the first to be approved since 2012, and the first successful proposals in the state’s network put forward by California Tribes.  

Following is a statement for Sandy Aylesworth, director of the Pacific Initiative at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):  

“Chumash Tribes asked California to protect their ancestral waters, and today the state said yes. Mishopshno and Point Sal hold some of the healthiest ocean left on our coast, which include a kelp forest that’s held on while so much of California’s kelp has disappeared, a nursery for young white sharks, and a headland where currents protect fish larvae long enough to grow and restock the coast. 

“By creating Mishopshno and Point Sal—two marine protected areas that will be co-stewarded by the state of California and Chumash Tribal Nations—the state is recognizing the peoples who have stewarded California’s coastal seascapes for generations and is paving the way for the next generation of marine conservation. 

“While the Trump administration pushes new oil drilling off our coast, California just chose to protect it, and to do so alongside the people who have stewarded these waters and called them home for thousands of years. 

“This is an exciting day to celebrate the state’s conservation of these special places and a new approach to ocean stewardship.”  

Background: 

• This vote is part of the state’s first-ever adaptive management review of its MPA network, one of its key strategies for conserving 30 percent of California’s coastal waters by 2030 (30x30). 
• Mishopshno, off Carpinteria, was proposed in 2023 by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, NRDC, and the Environmental Defense Center. It protects a 1.6-mile rocky reef, a persistent kelp forest, and a juvenile white shark aggregation. 
• Point Sal, cosponsored by the Northern Chumash Tribal Council and NRDC, protects the waters around the Point Sal headland, which include sacred Chumash cultural resources. 
• An October 2025 poll found that nearly four in five California voters support MPAs. Seven in ten California voters support a Point Sal MPA – and more than half “strongly support” it. Two-thirds support a Mishopshno MPA. 
• NRDC background blog: California Decides on Marine Protected Areas This Fall 

Established in 1970, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) works to safeguard the earth, its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends. Our team of more than 800 lawyers, policy experts, scientists, economists, and communications specialists work across the United States and around the world, from offices in Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Santa Monica, as well as a representative office in Beijing and affiliate offices in New Delhi (through NRDC’s wholly owned for-profit subsidiary, NRDC India Private Limited) and London (through its UK-based partner NRDC International).