It is a rare day that this dirt lawyer, with an ocean-related blog, gets to blog about environmental law AND the ocean environment. Dear readers – today is the day! In a case certainly bound for the Hawaii Supreme Court, the Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) held that aquarium fish permit applications was not sufficient
Walk softly.
Walk softly, stranger.
The land on which you stand is Holy ground …
a place of unspoiled beauty, colored by the hand of God.
And you who stand upon this land will someday too
remember sun-washed sands and quiet days, and
moments crystallized in time.
Walk softly, stranger,
for you stand on Holy
“When you collect marine animals there are certain flat worms so delicate that they are almost impossible to catch whole for they will break and tatter under the touch. You must let them ooze and crawl of their own will onto a knife blade and lift them gently into your bottle of sea water. And
The Ninth Circuit rejected a challenge to California's Shark Fin Law, Cal. Fish & Game Code § 2021(b) which makes it "unlawful for any person to possess, sell, offer for sale, trade, or distribute a shark fin" in the state. The case is Chinatown Neighborhood Ass'n v. Harris and the opinion can be found here
Ah, the bloggers's dream: juxtaposing DC Showdown with Fisheries Law in the title of your post.
On a more serious note, domestic fisheries are a $5B component of our national economy with certainly more impact locally in those ports where fish are landed.
The governing statute which sets out federal regulation of fisheries is the
The Washington Post ran an exclusive article this week reporting that President Obama is about to expand the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument purportedly creating the world's largest marine sanctuary.
Per the article:
Under the proposal, according to two independent analyses, the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument would be expanded from almost
The Hawaii Legislature recently introduced several bills relating to the ocean environment and maritime industry here.
First up, an increase in barrel tax from five cents per barrel to fifteen. Follow it here.
Next, a requirement that barge-based fuel transfers use containment boom during transfer operations. Follow it here.
And, the biggie
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just affirmed the use of geographic sub-regions to determine the impact of commercial fishing on critical habitat and population levels. The case is Alaska v. Lubchenko and the opinion can be found here.From the court's summary:The panel affirmed the district court’s judgment rejecting the claims of fishing
Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals shot down the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society on a piracy theory (my post here). This week, Greenpeace is in the hotseat. This case arises from a preliminary injunction obtained by Shell Oil Company against Greenpeace for protest activities in the Arctic. The case is Shell
"You don't need a peg leg or an eye patch."
Author note: I challenge any of my intrepid readers to find as odd a statement in any opinion.
Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Kozinski at his finest, for sure. Today, the Ninth Circuit ruled on an Alien Tort Statute brought by a permitted whale hunter against