Newswise — The National Sea Grant Law Center, housed at the University of Mississippi, has awarded $550,000 in competitive grants for legal research and outreach projects as part of the center's 2007 grant competition.
The 11 funded projects address marine issues relevant to the National Sea Grant Program's mission of conducting research, education, training and extension projects to foster environmental stewardship, long-term economic development and responsible use of America's coastal, ocean and Great Lakes resources.
The grant competition program is funded by the National Sea Grant College Program and administered by the National Sea Grant Law Center.
The projects will develop courses to improve understanding of wetlands and fisheries laws; study the governance structure of the new Northwest Hawaiian Islands National Monument, working waterfront laws in Maine and the public trust doctrine in South Carolina; and organize workshops on cooperative harvesting agreements and community-based management.
Grant recipient Suzanne Martley said that her $50,000 award will support an examination of state and federal law to determine the possibility of community-based fishery management. The project, through MRAG Americas, is titled "Review and Development of Near-Shore Legal and Policy Framework for Community-based Management Opportunities in Oregon."
Martley explained that in some parts of the world fisheries routinely are managed by the community; however, it is unclear what legal framework exists for such organization in the United States. The community that Martley is working with in Oregon has the organizational tools, the fleet and the community connections to make a community-based fishery management system work.
"However, they don't have the answer to the legal question of whether it is possible," she said. "That's where we come in. We want to look at the laws, particularly federal laws, to see if it's possible, and if it's not possible, to figure out how to make it possible."
This year's grant competition attracted applicants from universities, nonprofit organizations, commercial organizations and state governments. The center received 28 full proposals seeking more than $1.7 million in funding.
Stephanie Showalter, director of the center, said she was impressed with the number and quality of the proposals received.
"The overwhelming response to our grant competition underscores the great need for non-advocacy legal research and training to help coastal managers and the public understand and utilize existing legal frameworks designed to protect fragile coastal resources," she said.
The National Sea Grant Law Center was founded in 2002 to provide legal research and outreach services to the Sea Grant community and its constituents. A partner with the University of Mississippi, the center conducts research on coastal and marine laws and policies, organizes continuing legal education classes and other training courses, and disseminates information to coastal and ocean policymakers.
Following is a list of the funded projects by region:
Northeast: Tracey Crago, Woods Hole (Maine) Sea Grant Program, "Development of a Course to Enhance Understanding of Wetlands Protection Laws and Legal Authority of Coastal Conservation Commission in Massachusetts," $40,000; Kristen Fletcher, Rhode Island Sea Grant Legal Program, "Fisheries for the Bench," $50,000; Rita Heimes, University of Maine School of Law, "Cooperative Harvesting Agreements Workshop for New England Groundfish Fisheries," $38,082; Judith McDowell, Woods Hole Sea Grant Program, "Effectively Managing Coastal Floodplain Development: Using Case Studies on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to Develop a National Model Floodplain Bylaw," $20,000; Natalie Springuel, Maine Sea Grant, "Legal and Policy Tools for the Protection of Coastal Access in Maine and the Nation," $54,531.
Southeast/Gulf of Mexico: Braxton Davis, South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management, "Examining the Evolving Public Trust in South Carolina," $26,545; Richard McLaughlin, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, "Legal, Policy, and Management Strategies for Effective Stewardship of the Gulf of Mexico: Developing a Consortium for an Adaptive Management Strategy," $75,000. Great Lakes: Colleen Masterson, Great Lakes Water Studies Institute, "Legal Tools to Protect Coastal Environments," $51,850; Brian Ohm, University of Wisconsin, "Model Coastal Management Ordinances for Great Lakes Coastal Communities," $58,483.
West Coast: Suzanne Martley, MRAG Americas, "Review and Development of Near-shore Legal and Policy Framework for Community-based Management Opportunities in Oregon," $50,000; Alison Rieser, University of Hawaii at Manoa, "Monumental Questions: Governing the Northwestern Hawaii Islands," $75,000. For more information about the National Sea Grant Law Center, visit http://www.olemiss.edu/orgs/SGLC/.
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