Gulf of Mexico Habitat Conservation & Restoration: A Look at the Five U.S. Gulf States' Legal and Institutional Frameworks
Author
Jordan Diamond, Kathryn Mengerink, and Sara Gersen
Date Released
September 2011
Gulf of Mexico Habitat Conservation and Restoration: A Look at the Five U.S. Gul

This report examines the legal and institutional frameworks for achieving habitat conservation and restoration of the five U.S. Gulf states (Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas). It provides an overarching assessment of the states’ approaches to managing different habitat types as well as several cross-cutting issues, including examples of particularly successful programs and recommendations for strengthening others. It also provides individual profiles of each of the five states.

Marine Spatial Planning in US Waters: An Assessment and Analysis of Existing Legal Mechanisms, Anticipated Barriers, and Future Opportunities
Author
Jordan Diamond, Adam Schempp, Kathryn Mengerink, and Jay Austin
Date Released
December 2009
Marine Spatial Planning in US Waters: An Assessment and Analysis of Existing Leg

Marine spatial planning (MSP) has gained increasing international attention as a tool for implementing ecosystem-based management, reducing user conflicts, and ensuring the sustainable use of ocean and coastal resources. While the President’s Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force developed recommendations for a federal MSP framework, the Environmental Law Institute and Ocean Conservancy have released a report, Marine Spatial Planning in US Waters, that reviews federal ocean and coastal laws, identifying the obstacles and opportunities they present for federal MSP.

Ocean and Coastal Ecosystem-Based Management: Implementation Handbook
Author
Kathryn Mengerink, Adam Schempp, and Jay Austin
Date Released
December 2009
Ocean and Coastal Ecosystem-Based Management: Implementation Handbook

With support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and input from many ocean and coastal management experts, the Environmental Law Institute produced this Handbook to identify successful approaches to implementing marine ecosystem-based management (EBM), describe their limitations, and highlight opportunities to apply them in the future. This Handbook provides a spectrum of examples that take steps toward EBM. It is designed to share a variety of approaches that may be useful in different settings depending upon regional needs and opportunities.

Virginia Offshore Energy Development Law and Policy Review and Recommendations
Date Released
December 2008
Virginia Offshore Energy Development Law and Policy Review and Recommendations

Virginia is facing various forms of energy development activities offshore and in the territorial waters of the Commonwealth. These include possible proposals for wind and wave energy, liquefied natural gas transport, and natural gas drilling on the outer continental shelf, among others. State laws and policies must deal with these activities and their anticipated impacts. Virginia’s Coastal Zone Management Program has provided support for this project by the Environmental Law Institute to examine the law and policy framework in place to deal with potential activities.

Ocean Program Editorial

Ocean Program Editorial

Seven

July 8, 2013

I’ve been working on ocean issues for, not seven, but 20 years. While working on my degree in zoology, I dove into ocean research at a marine field station in Florida, studying molecular evolution in jellyfish. Hooked on the fabulous biodiversity of life at sea, I spent the next several years earning a PhD in marine biology.

Ocean Program

Our oceans act as a crucial life-support system for the planet and its inhabitants — soaking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, providing a wealth of natural resources, nurturing incredible and mysterious sea creatures, and serving as a playground and place of cultural heritage. Covering 71 percent of Earth’s surface and providing 99 percent of its living space, the ocean often seems invincible. Yet human activity threatens to diminish the myriad services that the ocean provides.

Subscribe to Oceans