Environmental Law Clinic works to protect endangered sea turtles

A leatherback turtle nesting on Las Paulinas beach, neat the proposed resort project. Photo: Rafael Joglar.

To attain the Juris Doctor degree from the School of Law at UPR, RP, students must participate in the Legal Assistance Clinic. This supervised practice gives students experience working with actual cases and clients. As students in our final year of law school, the first week of classes at the Environmental Law Clinic of 2005-06 at UPR, RP began with excitement. Lawyer Pedro Saadé Llorens, director of the clinic, quickly informed us of the current cases. Our clients are mainly environmental organizations and communities that come to the clinic for legal consultation or representation; we also offer legal advice to the general public. At present, the clinic is representing the Coalición Playas Pa’l Pueblo in the case against the Marriott Hotel in Carolina; the Ciudadanos del Karso in a case against the Department of Natural Resources for not properly implementing the stipulations of a law to protect and conserve the karst physiography of Puerto Rico; and the Initiative for Sustainable Development (ISD), individual citizens, and fishermen in action taken against the San Miguel Four Seasons Resort and Dos Mares Marriott Resort construction in the Northeast Ecological Corridor (NEC) for failure to comply with the new Environmental Public Policy Act.

As soon as our group of five students decided to work on the NEC case, we received the unexpected news that in just ten days we would have to provide a written legal document in response to a motion opposing our plea to reconsider the original ruling before the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals in the Dos Mares Resort case. We had to learn in a very short time the details of the case, plan a strategy, and write the motion. In addition, we had to develop arguments and legal documents, carry out fieldwork, examine the area, and compile data in order to better understand the dispute.

Guided by the ISD environmental biologist Luis Jorge Rivera Herrera and student members of the National Association of Environmental Law (ANDA by its Spanish acronym), we visited the NEC in September 2005 to familiarize ourselves with the area the resorts plan to develop. We came to understand the importance of protecting and conserving the NEC as a habitat for wildlife, particularly for two turtle species—the leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) and the hawksbill sea turtle (Eremotchelys imbricata)—both in danger of extinction. In 2005, the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources identified more than 400 leatherback nests, an estimated 479 percent increase from 1993. Scientists estimate that turtle nests increased 244 percent at North Convento Beach; 283 percent at Las Paulinas Beach, and 2,450 percent on the San Miguel coast during the same time period.

The Environmental Law Clinic challenged the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board’s approval of the Environmental Impact Statement that Dos Mares presented. In November 2004, the Clinic submitted an appeal to the Court of Appeals to reconsider significant deficiencies in the statement. This appeal brought to the court’s attention the fact that the Environmental Impact Statement did not comply with the Environmental Public Policy Act of 2004 stipulations; however, the Court of Appeals confirmed the board’s decision to approve it. The clinic next appealed to the Puerto Rico Supreme Court through an a certiorari discretionary appeal. In September 2006, the Puerto Rican Supreme Court rejected it outright, without stating the reasons for not reviewing the case.

Currently, the clinic is awaiting the Supreme Court’s response to a written reconsideration that was submitted in September 2006. If denied, the clinic would have the right to a second and last reconsideration, which would then exhaust the appellate possibilities of this route. As environmental law clinic students, we have learned the complexity of legal practice, assisted our community, and perhaps helped prevent or at least helped delay the decline of endangered sea turtles by attempting to protect their nesting sites.

http://www.law.upr.edu/clinica/clinica.htm