January 2007

COLUMNS  
     

  A Winter ’06 Update from the FSU College of Law
  David Markell, Donna Christie, J.B. Ruhl, and Robin Kundis Craig

      

This fall has been a productive one for FSU’s Environmental and Land Use Law Program.  We summarize below some recent activities and accomplishments.  We invite ELULs members to join us for our spring Environmental Forum, which is set for April 4 and will focus on Florida’s Affordable Housing Crisis.  Please check the College of Law Environmental Events page in the spring for more details.

Our Fall Environmental Forum

Our November 2006 Environmental Forum, which the College of Law co-sponsored with the ELULS, focused on The Role of Marine Reserves in a Fisheries Management Strategy.  Marine reserves are essentially ocean “wilderness” areas: all extractive and disruptive activities are prohibited within a reserve.  These reserves have proved controversial.  While some people tout marine reserves based on the benefits they bring to ecosystems and fishery populations, fishermen, among others, have expressed concerns that the use of such reserves is not sufficiently supported by science to justify the complete closure of areas to such important economic use.  The details of reserves have proved challenging as well.  Scientists have been working diligently on issues of size and location to determine how marine reserves can be used optimally.  Our fall Forum featured leading experts on the topic, including: Professor Felicia Coleman, Director of the FSU Coastal and Marine Laboratory, a Pew Marine Conservation Fellow and an Aldo Leopold Leadership Program Fellow; Professor Robin Craig, Attorneys’ Title Insurance Fund Professor, FSU College of Law; Charles Shelfer, Deputy General Counsel, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission; and David White, Director, South Atlantic regional office of The Ocean Conservancy (TOC).  Professor Donna Christie, a leading authority on legal issues surrounding ocean and coastal management law and policy, moderated the program, and Lauren Moody, President of the FSU Environmental Law Society, introduced the program. 

FSU’s Environmental Law Society

Our student-run Environmental Law Society (ELS) has been extraordinarily productive this fall.  The ELS sponsored a standing-room only brown bag lunch that featured Ralph DeMeo, of Hopping Green & Sams.  Ralph did a terrific job of discussing the use of experts in environmental litigation.  The ELS has also organized a “Commuter Choices” campaign, as part of the National Association of Environmental Law Societies’ Campus Climate Neutral campaign.   

Recent FSU College of Law faculty scholarship

Donna Christie and her co-authors have published the 3rd West edition of the Coastal and Ocean Law casebook.  The 3rd edition of Coastal and Ocean Management Law in a Nutshell will be out early in 2007.  Her article, Living Marine Resources Management: A Proposal for Integration of United States Management Regimes, 34 Environmental Law 107, was recently chosen one of the country’s top ten land use and environmental law articles for 2005 and reprinted in 37 Land Use and Environment Law Review (2006).  Other recent articles include: Implementing an Ecosystem-Approach to Ocean Management: An Assessment of Current Regional Governance Models, 16 Duke Environmental & Policy Forum 117 (2006) and A Tale of Three Takings: Taking Analysis in Land Use Regulation in the United States, Australia and Canada, 32 Brooklyn Journal of International Law (forthcoming 2007).

J.B. Ruhl co-authored two recent publications with Jim Salzman (Duke): In Defense of Regulatory Peer Review, 84 Washington University Law Review 1 (2006) and “The Effects of Wetlands Mitigation Banking on People,” National Wetlands Newsletter, Mar.-Apr. 2006, at 1, 9-14 (2006).  J.B. and John Nagle (Notre Dame) also came out with the second edition of The Law of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Management (Foundation Press University Casebook Series, 2006).  J.B. has also finished work on The Law and Policy of Ecosystem Services (Island Press) (with Steve Kraft and Chris Lant), which is due out in May 2007.

Robin Kundis Craig’s recent articles include: Coastal Water Quality Protection, in Ocean and Coastal Law (Donald C. Baur, Timothy Eichenberg & Michael Sutton, Eds. (ABA: forthcoming April 2007), Urban Storm Water Runoff and the Oceans, 21:4 Natural Resources and the Environment (forthcoming Spring 2007), The Role of Use Competition and in the Protection of Coastal Ecosystem Services, 21:1 Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law (forthcoming Spring 2007), "Marine Protected Areas and the United States' Ocean Policy and Law," 38:3 Trends (ABA SEER) (forthcoming Jan./Feb. 2007), Are Marine National Monuments Better Than Marine National Sanctuaries?  U.S. Ocean Policy, Marine Protected Areas, and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, 7:1 Sustainable Development Law & Policy (forthcoming Fall 2006) (invited article), Total Maximum Daily Load, in Encyclopedia of Water Science (Stanely W. Trimble, ed.) (forthcoming Fall 2006), Urban Runoff and Ocean Water Quality in Southern California: What Tools Does the Clean Water Act Provide?  9 Chapman Law Review 313-363 (Spring 2006).

David Markell’s recent articles include: Understanding Citizen Perspectives on Government Decision-Making Processes as a Way to Improve the Administrative State, 36 Environmental Law 651 (2006), and “Slack” in the Administrative State and its Implications for Governance: the Issue of Accountability, 84 Oregon Law Review 1 (2005).  The 5th edition of the leading environmental law casebook for which Prof. Markell is a co-author, Environmental Protection: Law and Policy (Glicksman, Markell, Buzbee, Mandelker, and Tarlock) (Aspen Law &Business), is due out in 2007.  Other publications scheduled for publication in 2007 include Compliance & Enforcement: Toward More Effective Implementation of Environmental Law (Proceedings of the 4th IUCN Academy of Environmental Law Colloquium) (Cambridge Univ. Press) (co-editor), and Is there a Possible Role for Regulatory Enforcement in the Effort to Value, Protect, and Restore Ecosystem Services?, 21 Journal of Land Use and Environmental Law __ (2007).


 

Copyright 2008, The Environmental and Land Use Law Section of The Florida Bar