Water Log 19.2

Lagniappe (a little something extra)

Around the Gulf . . .

Norman Haigh of Natchez, Mississippi and Jonesville, Louisiana recently was awarded the 1999 National Wetlands Award for Land Stewardship and Development for his dedication to restoring the productivity of farmland in the Lower Mississippi Valley including managing a row-crop farm as a model for conservation.

Florida environmentalists defeated Coastal Petroleum Company's efforts to obtain twelve offshore drilling permits in Gulf areas when an administrative law judge determined that Coastal had failed to provide sufficient information about the environmental impacts of the drilling.

In April, the Florida keys National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Committee met to discuss the projected use of a $500,000 restitution settlement to restore and further protect the sanctuary area. The funds were part of the agreement between Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and the federal government related to the illegal discharge of oil into Florida waters and the subsequent falsification of records.

Members of the five gulf states governmental, NGO, and academic communities came together in Ocean Springs, MS, in April to discuss the development of aquatic nuisance management plans aimed at curtailing the environmental and economic threat of the introduction of non-indigenous species into the region.

Around the Nation and the World . . .

The National Marine Fisheries Service has adopted the Code of Angling Ethics to promote ethical fishing behavior and implement the public education requirements of President Clinton's 1995 Executive Order regarding the management of recreational fisheries.

In April, the Commerce Department announced that the United States will adopt a new dolphin-safe label standard for tuna caught by the encirclement of dolphins in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean authorizing its use if the tuna are caught in the presence of dolphins, provided that none are killed or seriously injured.

The International Maritime Organization and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development recently completed drafting of a new Convention on Arrests of Ships, an agreement that would give national authorities the right to seize ships that, among other things, present a pollution threat.

Reacting to the recent World Bank estimate that government subsidies to promote fishing total $11 billion to $20 billion annually, Australia, Iceland, New Zealand, and Philippines joined the United States in proposing a curb on fishing subsidies at the World Trade Organization environmental conference.

Following the declaration of a national hake fishing emergency, thousands of Argentine fishermen protested outside Congress in Buenos Aires this June in an effort to get legislators to overturn a hake fishing ban aimed at rebuilding depleted stocks. The bill would lift the hake ban for small and mid-sized fishing ventures and relegate large local and foreign fishing operations to waters 200 miles from the coast north of the 48th parallel.

University of Mississippi