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Oceans and Coasts
Biodiversity | Climate Change and Sustainability | Environmental Justice | Governance and Rule of Law | Land Use and Natural Resources | Oceans and Coasts | Pollution Control
Is Offshore Wind About to Take Off?
By Caroline McHugh, Law Clerk
Monday, November 19, 2018
“It’s all happening,” declared a June 2018 article about offshore wind development in the United States. Indeed, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has identified a trend toward a viable U.S. offshore wind industry that is gaining momentum. Despite this trend, it has been 17 years since the first offshore wind project was proposed, and the 30-megawatt (MW) Block Island Wind Farm is still the only operating project. Has the time finally arrived for this industry?
Finding Legal Avenues for Bottom-Up Management of Small-Scale Fisheries in the Mesoamerican Reef
By Sierra Killian, Research Associate
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
According to the World Bank, small-scale fisheries (SSF) in developing countries produce over one-half of total fish catch and employ almost 90 percent of part- and full-time fishers. Despite the subsector’s clear importance to food security and the financial sustainability of fisheries-dependent communities around the world, there are considerable gaps in both knowledge of and management strategies for small-scale fisheries. Because fishers in the SSF subsector are widely dispersed, it is difficult for governing bodies to collect data and make management decisions based on incomplete information. Given the precarious state of global fisheries, one-third of which are fished beyond biological sustainability, managing SSF despite the lack of data is a crucial component of sustainably feeding the world into the future.
Mississippi Meetup: ELI in the Gulf
By Amy Reed, Staff Attorney
Monday, August 6, 2018
Last month, fellow ELI Gulf Team member Teresa Chan and I travelled to Mississippi to attend two public events hosted by the Deepwater Horizon natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) trustees: a community education workshop in Gulfport, and the Trustee Council’s annual public meeting in Long Beach.
Talking Trash About Plastics
By Cynthia R. Harris, Staff Attorney; Director of Tribal Programs; Deputy Director of the Center for State, Tribal, and Local Environmental Programs
Monday, July 2, 2018
It’s official: China isn’t taking our garbage anymore. Literally. Effective this year, China started restricting the import of 24 types of waste and established new thresholds for contaminants such as food residues and metals. Why does that create a significant problem for the United States? Consider this: China imported 776,000 metric tons of reclaimed plastic and 13 million metric tons of recycled paper from the United States in 2016 alone.
ELI Collaborates With Niue to Help Create One of the World’s Largest MPAs
By Xiao Recio-Blanco, Senior Attorney; Director, Ocean Program
Monday, June 18, 2018
One of the highlights of the 2017 Our Ocean Conference in Malta was the announcement made by Minister for Natural Resources Hon. Dalton Tagelagi that Niue, a small island nation in the South Pacific Ocean, would create a new, large marine protected area to adequately conserve the unique marine biodiversity in Niuean waters.
Fishing For Opportunity: A Perspective on Vietnamese Community Engagement in Gulf Restoration (Why I Participate in Gulf Restoration)
By Azi Akpan, Science and Policy Analyst; Manager, National Wetlands Awards
Monday, May 14, 2018
This conversation with Danny Le, BPSOS, is part of the ELI Gulf of Mexico team’s “Why I Participate in Gulf Restoration” blog series. The series aims to highlight the views of community members impacted by the BP oil spill, and provide a glimpse of some challenges and successes they face in getting involved in the restoration processes.
Pearls of Wisdom From a Mississippi Fisherman: A Conversation With Ryan Bradley (Why I Participate in Gulf Restoration)
By Azi Akpan, Science and Policy Analyst; Manager, National Wetlands Awards
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Historically, the Gulf Coast region has produced more seafood than anywhere else in the continental U.S., both in volume and dollar value. Before the BP oil spill, in 2009, the Gulf seafood industry provided over 213,000 full- and part-time jobs. The oil spill has had a devastating impact on people working in the Gulf’s seafood industry. As a result of the BP oil spill, over 88,000 square miles of the Gulf’s federal waters—nearly 37%—were closed to fishing. There were also fishing closures in the state waters of Alabama (40% closed), Florida (2% closed), Louisiana (55% closed), and Mississippi (95% closed). Fishermen are still facing financial instability years after the spill, and have observed significant declines in landings and stock quality. Here, we highlight one Gulf fisherman’s perspective.
Offshore and Still on the Horizon, Part 2: President Trump’s Offshore Oil and Gas Leasing Plan
By Jay Austin, Senior Attorney; Editor-in-Chief, Environmental Law Reporter®
Monday, February 26, 2018
As readers of this blog know, a recent refrain in environmental law has been “can he do that?” – the ongoing reexamination of presidential and executive branch authority in light of a dizzying array of proposed reversals, revisions, and rescissions of existing policies and rules. At ELI, we’ve attempted to answer that question through our “Environmental Protection in the Trump Era” report, which will get updated later this spring. My own contributions have included the chapter on offshore oil and gas drilling, as well as a more detailed look at last April’s Executive Order 13795 on “Implementing an America-First Offshore Energy Strategy,” which extends the new watchword of “energy dominance” to the outer continental shelf.
“New Arctic” Is a Dream Meltdown
By Stephen R. Dujack, Editor, The Environmental Forum®
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
I went to the North Pole in April, the favored month for travel in the High Arctic. That was 16 years ago. According to the 2017 National Climate Assessment, the region’s warming began accelerating around the time of my visit. It is no longer the same frozen ecology and economy I had seen.
Participating in Gulf Restoration
By Amy Reed, Staff Attorney
Monday, December 4, 2017
[Updated December 13, 2017]
November was a busy month for Gulf restoration.
A couple of weeks back, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) held its second annual Restoration Summit.
The Summit was billed as “an opportunity for any member of the public to learn about current restoration projects in Mississippi and the announcement of new projects for 2017.” (It also served as the annual public meeting for the Mississippi Trustee Implementation Group (TIG), a group of federal and state agency representatives overseeing the natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) process in Mississippi.)
