Professor Joe Serres, J.D., M.B.A.

What will you learn in this unit?

•   The federal laws and agencies responsible for overseeing public lands in the United States 

•        The federal laws and agencies that oversee the extraction or exploitation of natural resources in the United States 

•        The federal law and agencies that protect the water resources of the United States 

•        The federal law and agencies that protect endangered species in the United States

 

Unit 8Unit 8 Natural ResourcesNatural Resources

•Read Chapter 10 in Environmental Law •Read pp. 357–366 in Chapter 9 of Environmental Law•Read pp. 454–460 in Chapter 11 of Environmental Law•Read a brief news article illustrating the constant struggle between conservation and development

PUBLIC LANDSPUBLIC LANDSFORESTS

RANGELANDS

PUBLIC LAND REGULATIONS

The primary agencies responsible for land management are the Bureau of Land Management, the FWS, the Forest Service, and the National Park Service. In addition, the Department of Defense is responsible for managing six million acres of forestland.

Wilderness Act, the law that created the National Wilderness Preservation System.

The act defines a wilderness as having four characteristics. First, there has been no noticeable human impact on the land. Second, the area offers opportunities for solitude or primitive recreation. Third, the area consists of at least 5,000 acres or a sufficient size to make preservation possible. Finally, although this characteristic is not mandatory, the area has ecological, geological, or other value. The act itself specifies certain areas to be designated wilderness and other forests to be reviewed for consideration as wilderness in the future. Under this law, once land is designated wilderness, its use is sharply restricted. The agency administering the land must preserve the “wilderness character” of the area and make sure that the area is devoted to “the public purposes of recreational, scenic, scientific, education, conservation, and historical use.” Unless specifically provided for by statute, no commercial enterprises or permanent roads may be constructed in any wilderness area. An exception in the act, however, provided for the continuation of mining in wilderness areas until 1983. By the middle of 2006, 106,619 million acres had been designated wilderness under the National Wilderness Preservation System.

Public Land LawPublic Land Law

In 1976, greater protection for public lands was encouraged by the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. This act requires the secretary of the interior, when managing the public lands, to take any action necessary to “prevent unnecessary or undue degradation of the lands.”

The National Forest Management Act of 1976, is the primary statute directing the Department of Agriculture’s administration of the National Forests. The act requires detailed resource management plans based on multiple-use and sustained-yield principles.

The Bush administration attempted to repeal the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which barred virtually all road building, logging, and mining on 58.5 million acres of national forest.

Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003

Wetlands are any of the following: bogs, bottomland hardwoods, fens, mangrove swamps, marshes, swamps, prairie potholes, playa lakes, pocosins, vernal pools, and wet meadows. When covered with saltwater, these areas are known as coastal wetlands; when covered with freshwater, they are inland wetlands.

An estuary is a coastal area where the freshwater of rivers and streams mixes with seawater. Estuaries, and the land surrounding them, serve as transition places from land to sea, and from freshwater to seawater.

Coastal wetlands, as their name suggests, are found along the Atlantic, Pacific, Alaskan, and Gulf coasts. They make up about 30 percent of the wetlands and 16 percent of the coastline.

WETLANDS, ESTUARIES,AND COASTAL AREAS

Wetland Regulation- Clean Water ActWetland Regulation- Clean Water Act

The main regulatory tool for preserving wetlands is Section 404 of the CWA. This provision requires that any landowner seeking to add dredged or filled material to a wetland must receive a permit from the Army COE or risk being subject to both civil and criminal penalties. To obtain such a permit, the landowner must demonstrate that they have (1) taken steps to avoid wetland impacts where practical, (2) minimized potential impacts to wetlands, and (3) provided compensation for any remaining, unavoidable impacts through activities to restore or create wetlands, and that the activity is in the public interest.

When Congress created the CWA, the act regulated “navigable waters.” The CWA, like many environmental laws, derives its authority from the commerce clause of the Constitution (discussed in Chapter 1), meaning that the act can only regulate intrastate wetlands in so far as they affect interstate commerce. The meaning of “navigable waters” is a matter of some dispute, and the definition of “navigable waters” included intrastate waters when changes to these waters would affect interstate commerce.

MARINE PROTECTION, RESEARCH,MARINE PROTECTION, RESEARCH,AND SANCTUARIES ACTAND SANCTUARIES ACT

The 1972 Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act allows the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to designate specific areas as marine sanctuaries. Such sanctuaries are the marine equivalent to national parks, and they are to have protective management of their recreational, ecological, historical, educational, and aesthetic values.  

 

COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT ACT PLANS

Some of the more substantive elements of a CZMA Plan include:• a definition of what will constitute permissible land uses within the coastal zone that will have direct and significant impact on coastal waters• broad guidelines on the priorities of uses in particular areas• a description of the organizational structure to implement the proposed management plan• a definition of beach and a planning process for protection of and access to public beaches and other public coastal areas of environmental,recreational, historical, aesthetic, ecological, or cultural value• a planning process for studying and controlling erosion

Wild & Scenic Rivers Act:

It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States that certain selected rivers of the Nation which, with their immediate environments, possess outstandingly remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish and wildlife, historic, cultural, or other similar values, shall be preserved in free-flowing condition, and that they and their immediate environments shall be protected for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations. The Congress declares that the established national policy of dam and other construction at appropriate sections of the rivers of the United States needs to be complemented by a policy that would preserve other selected rivers or sections thereof in their free-flowing condition to protect the water quality of such rivers and to fulfill other vital national conservation purposes.

WILD & SCENIC RIVERS WILD & SCENIC RIVERS SYSTEMSYSTEM ENDANGERED SPECIES

Endangered Species Act passed in 1973 because:

1. Various species of fish, wildlife, and plants in the United States have been rendered extinct because of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation.2. Other species of fish, wildlife, and plants have become so depleted in numbers that they are in danger of or threatened with extinction.3. These species of fish, wildlife, and plants are of aesthetic, ecological, educational,historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation and its people.

Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) of 1977

The primary objective of the act, as indicated by its name, was to force the mining industry to return the land from which it stripped the coal to a level of productivity equal or superior to its condition before mining.

A new executive agency, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM), was created within the Department of the Interior to enforce the act. Act has long been source of controversy.

Regulation of the Mining IndustryRegulation of the Mining Industry

Hydraulic Mining~ SW Oregon, early 1900s

International Environmental Law- Marine International Environmental Law- Marine PollutionPollution

The primary approach to protecting the oceans and seas has been through the use of treaties, with one of the more important treaties being the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Section 603, State Responsibility for Marine Pollution, obligates a state to “adopt laws and regulations to prevent, reduce and control any significant pollution of the marine environment that are no less effective than generally accepted international rules and standards,” and to “ensure compliance with the foregoing by ships flying its flag, imposing adequate penalties on the captain or owner of the ship that violates such rules.”

Part (2) of Section 603 provides that “a state is obligated to take, individually and jointly with other states, such measures as may be necessary, to the extent practicable under the circumstances, to prevent, reduce, and control pollution causing or threatening to cause significant injury to the marine environment.”

PRESERVATION OF BIOLOGICAL PRESERVATION OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITYDIVERSITY

Convention on International Trade in Endangered

Species of Fauna and Flora

“Perhaps the most successful of all international treaties concerned with the conservation of wildlife.” Ratified by 164 nations as of 2004, the treaty is designed to prohibit the international trafficking in wildlife species and products that are endangered.

Although CITES looks good, the problem with it lies in its enforcement. Studies of enforcement of the treaty have found that most inspectors in signatory nations are not trained well enough to be able to enforce the treaty. In the United States, CITES is implemented through the Endangered Species Act, which many call one of the most stringent environmental statutes in the world.

TABLE 11-2 Treaties That Help Preserve the Global Commons and Biological Diversity, p.457, Ch.11

Review Key TermsReview Key TermsPublic Lands – lands owned and managed by the United States government, which includes national forests, parks, wildlife refuges, monuments, wilderness areas, and rangelands.

Endangered Species - a population of an organism that is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers or threatened by changing environmental or habitat parameters.

Coastal Zones - The zone extends inland from the shorelines only to the extent necessary to control shorelands, the uses of which have a direct and significant impact on the coastal waters, and to control those geographical areas that are likely to be affected by or vulnerable to sea level rise.

Wilderness areas - The most intact, undisturbed wild natural areas left on Earth that humans do not control and have not developed with roads, pipelines, or other industrial infrastructure.

Joseph Creek Wild & Scenic River, Wallowa Mountains, NE Oregon

Discussion BoardDiscussion Board

Topic 1: Preservation v. Conservation

Topic 2: Benefits and Controversies Surrounding the Endangered Species Act

 Topic 2: National Security v. Mammal Protection

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Marble MountainMarble Mountain Wilderness

NW California