Public Trust Doctrine: Too Limited

As someone who has long advocated a coherent national ocean policy, I agree with M. Turnipseed and her colleagues that properly framed public trust concepts regarding the United States's marine environments could be an important component of federal oceans law (“Legal bedrock for rebuilding America's ocean ecosystems,” Policy Forum, 10 April, p. [183][1]). However, the public trust doctrine—described by Turnipseed et al. as a “legal concept that obliges state governments to manage certain natural resources in the best interests of their citizens”—is not necessarily the “legal bedrock” that the authors portray it to be, particularly if the goal is broad-based ecosystem management. The authors rely heavily on California's public trust doctrine, which is one of the two most expansive and ecologically protective versions of the public trust doctrines in the United States (Hawaii's is the other). Each state has its own version of the doctrine, and most have not been nearly so willing to extend their public trust law to aquatic ecosystem protection. Indeed, as framed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the seminal case of Illinois Central Railroad Co. v. Illinois , 146 U.S. 387 (1892), the public trust doctrine has two main components. First, it prevents states from giving private persons control over the beds and banks of navigable waters, and hence control over the waters themselves. Thus, the resources protected under the doctrine include only bed-based natural resources such as oil and gas, gravel, and occasionally shellfish. Second, the public trust doctrine classically preserves only three public uses of the navigable waters themselves: navigation, commerce, and fishing. This last use underscores the need to carefully construct any public trust doctrine for the United States's marine waters. Many marine fish populations are in dire trouble ([ 1 ][2]–[ 4 ][3]), and enshrining a right to fish in federal law would undermine, rather than promote, effective ocean ecosystem management. 1. [↵][4]1. D. Pauly 2. et al ., Science 302, 1359 (2003). [OpenUrl][5][Abstract/FREE Full Text][6] 2. 1. C. Costello, 2. S. D. Gaines, 3. J. Lynham , Science 321, 1678 (2008). [OpenUrl][7][Abstract/FREE Full Text][8] 3. 1. B. Worm 2. et al ., Science 325, 578 (2009). [OpenUrl][9][Abstract/FREE Full Text][10] 4. [↵][11]1. E. Stokstad , Science 324, 170 (2009). 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