Ecology Law Currents is the online-only publication of Ecology Law Quarterly, one of the nation's most respected and widely read environmental law journals. Currents features short-form commentary and analysis on timely environmental law and policy issues.
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Drakes Bay Oyster Company (DBOC)[1] runs a commercial shellfish farming operation in Drakes Estero, a 2,500-acre network of five finger-like bays that extend into the Point Reyes Peninsula, north of San Francisco, California.[2] In 1976, Congress designated more than 25,000 acres of wilderness and 8,003 acres (including the Estero) of potential wilderness within the Point Reyes National Seashore.[3] This marked the first time Congress used the “potential wilderness” designation, creating a new category for areas that would become full wilderness without further legislative action once temporary uses inconsistent with wilderness values ceased.[4] Since that time, Congress has designated more than 250,000 acres of potential wilderness—referred to in this Article as “congressionally designated potential wilderness areas” (CDPWAs)—associated with twenty-nine different wildernesses in thirteen states.[5] DBOC’s aquaculture business remains the sole nonconforming use preventing Drakes Estero from converting to full wilderness.[6] Its authorization to operate is set to expire before the end of 2012.[7]
Part of the onshore operations of Drakes Bay Oyster Company, which farms nonnative shellfish in Drakes Estero, an area Congress has designated as potential wilderness. Photo credit to Nell Green Nylen.
Brutal captures and deaths of American wild horses are occurring on the range. This is not a fictional western gone bad but federal policy. The government tries to justify this cruelty with junk science and is sheltered in its actions by procedural barriers and judicial deference. For nearly four decades, federal contractors have been capturing wild horses and burrosacross the western United States under the guise of “management” pursuant to the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.[1] The horses are often chased down by helicopters, sometimes for miles through rough terrain in the heat of summer, lassoed, and forced to the ground and then into trailers.
Wild horses are driven down a steep slope by a helicopter during the Twin Peaks Roundup, August 15, 2010. Video credit to Humane Observer.
As global whale populations slowly recover from historic hunting that
brought numerous species to the brink of extinction, the increasing number of
whales killed by collisions with ships threatens to slow or even reverse this
recovery in some areas. Along the west coast of the United States, this
conflict is most clearly evident in the Santa Barbara Channel, which not only
provides essential habitat for numerous whales, including the densest seasonal
population of blue whales on the planet, but also serves as the primary formal
shipping lane for traffic into and out of the nation’s busiest port complex at
the Los Angeles and Long Beach Harbors (LA/LB). While ship strikes have been
implicated in the deaths of blue whales off the California coast since as early
as 1980, the incidence of strikes has steadily risen, and in 2007 an
unprecedented five blue whales were struck and killed in the Santa Barbara
Channel.[1]
Weed in the Wild: Environmental Consequences of Marijuana Cultivation on Public Lands Speaker: Chief Ranger Steve Shackelton, Yosemite National Park
Yosemite Chief Ranger Steve Shackelton has a lot on his plate. Together with only sixty rangers to cover Yosemite’s nearly 1200 square miles,[1] he oversees the safety of more than 3.5 million visitors annually.[2] Yet, an unprecedented problem threatens Chief Shackelton’s ability to meet his goals: illegal cultivation of marijuana within the park has recently turned his team of safety rangers into drug enforcement agents and taken them away from their other duties.
Once abundant throughout the contiguous United States, gray wolves in the American West were brought to the brink of extinction by the 1930s
through one of the most effective eradication campaigns in modern history. As a
result, in 1974 gray wolves were protected under the Endangered Species Act[1]
(ESA). Due to intensive conservation efforts that included wolf
reintroduction to the greater Yellowstone and central Idaho areas, the current
wolf population in the northern Rocky Mountains has rebounded to approximately
1650. However, extreme hostility toward wolves continues to threaten the
species’ survival in the region. This hostility is expressed in the state laws
that will govern wolf management in the absence of federal protection under the
ESA. Nonetheless, for the second time in a year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service (FWS) is eliminating federal protection for northern Rockies gray
wolves and relegating wolf management to the states. In so doing, FWS has
approved state laws in Idaho and Montana that commit to maintaining only 100 to
150 wolves per state. The result is that the northern Rockies wolf population
could plummet to an unsustainable level, even in the short term.
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is the primary legal tool in the United States for the protection of biodiversity. Since its enactment in 1973, it has played a central role in efforts to halt the decline of native species throughout the country. Central to the ESA’s regulatory structure is Section 7 of the Act, which requires federal agencies to consult with federal wildlife agencies to insure that their actions do not “jeopardize” the existence of species listed for protection under the Act, or “adversely modify” designated critical habitat for listed species.
The outgoing Bush Administration proposed significant changes to the regulations implementing Section 7 of the Act on August 15, 2008.[1] Those changes greatly reduce the scope of Section 7’s application in two major ways. First, they reduce the analysis of federal actions pursuant to Section 7 by making it harder to connect federal actions to potential harm to listed species. Second, they give federal agencies the ability to determine whether their actions might harm listed species and accordingly whether Section 7 consultation should occur at all.
In a recent speech, former Vice President and Nobel laureate Al Gore challenged the nation to produce 100 percent of its electricity from non-carbon sources within ten years.[1] Linking the issues of climate, energy, economy and national security, Mr. Gore stated: “We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.”
