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Environmental Law and Policy in the Florida Keys

Learn about environmental law and policy in the Florida Keys!

During May term – the last two weeks of the month leading up to Memorial Day weekend – we head to the heart of the unique and beautiful Florida Keys. This is a 2-week intensive course in Marathon, Florida, that provides an overview of environmental laws, policies, and decision-making processes related to coastal and marine resources in the United States. It also teaches strategic thinking and advocacy, integrating doctrine, theory, skills, and legal ethics.

The Keys are a very unique chain of bridged islands, home to: a national marine sanctuary, a national park, critical habitat for endangered and threatened species, the last known undisturbed tropical hardwood forest, and the only living coral barrier reef in the continental U.S., the third largest coral barrier reef system in the world. The Keys also abut the Florida Everglades National Park. In addition to these natural features, the Keys have vibrant charter and commercial fishing industries and a history of sponge diving, wrecking and sunken treasure recovery. All this is under the oversight and management of a patchwork of local, state, federal and international governing bodies, along with corporate and tribal interests.

Through review of statutes, cases, administrative materials, and academic articles, we will explore issues like coastal and ocean land use, fisheries management, endangered species, marine sanctuaries and salvage. We will examine law and policy regimes as they relate to beaches, coastal wetlands, wildlife, and nearshore and offshore ocean environments, in the fragile Keys archipelago. Among the legal authorities we will discuss are: Coastal Zone Management Act, Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, Marine Research and Sanctuaries Act, National Parks Service Act, Endangered Species Act, the Abandoned Shipwreck Act, and public trust doctrine. Also, we will review laws that set standards for U.S. environmental policy: the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This course is primarily experiential in nature; there will be a daily experiential learning component. Students will learn and practice skills relative to environmental policy: obtaining documents, grassroots and grasstops organizing, using media as an advocacy tool and persuasive writing. The course also offers opportunities to see laws and policies in practice in this unique environment. Afternoon classes (depending on availability) may include:

  • Visit a commercial fish house, sea turtle hospital and wrecking/salvage museums – sometimes, we are lucky enough to see a rehabilitated sea turtle released back into the ocean
  • Snorkel/boat in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, meet the Sanctuary team
  • Tour the Dry Tortugas National Park
  • Meet local reporters and activists
  • Tropical forest and/or evening endangered species (Key Deer) habitat walk and talk;

 

Grades are based on active class participation, an in-class professional presentation and a final paper. Students may pre-arrange for the final paper to also count for writing requirements by following proper standards. This course fulfills requirements for the Environmental Law Certificate, the Master of Environmental Law, and Environmental LLM.

 

Contact Marianne Cufone for more information.