New York Coastal Resilience Law & Policy Fellowship Class of 2022 (l to r); Nicholas Rogers-Dillon, City University of New York Law School; Christopher Sudol, Elizabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University; Nikki Hart, University at Buffalo School of Law.

Contact:

Kathy Bunting-Howarth, NYSG's Associate Director, E: keb264@cornell.edu, P: 607-255-2832

New York Sea Grant’s New York Coastal Resilience Law and Policy Fellowship students develop information resources to support community resilience building while enhancing the students’ educational experience.

Ithaca, NY, August 10, 2022 - Communities situated along the coast are exposed to a host of unique natural, ecological, and manmade concerns which impact their shorelines, economies and residents. Communities can use law and policy to increase their resilience—socially and ecologically as well as physically. 

New York Sea Grant (NYSG) built a NY Coastal Resilience Law & Policy Program utilizing funds from two Legal Capacity Building grants from the National Sea Grant Law Center and NYSG Program Development dollars. In 2021, NYSG, in collaboration with University at Buffalo School of Law, the Elizabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, and the City University of New York Law School and Center for Urban Environmental Reform, held its second summer fellowship program.

Resources Assist New York State’s Great Lakes and New York City Communities, and Tribal Nations

Three NY Coastal Resilience Law & Policy Program Law Fellows, one from each participating school, worked with a NYSG extension specialist on a project specific to each Fellow’s chosen geography and local community needs. The students’ contributions included a permitting flow chart for communities to use when working along New York’s Great Lakes shoreline, a story map of nuisance flooding sites in New York City with information on which agency to call for assistance, and a white paper for NYSG staff to use to help deepen understanding of the law as it pertains to Tribal Nations and environmental justice.

Project Partners:

• City University of New York Law School and Center for Urban Environmental Reform
• Elizabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University
• University at Buffalo School of Law

New York Sea Grant partnered with three law schools to create a fellowship program that provides law students with an opportunity to apply their legal skills to inform products needed by local communities and for NYSG staff to use to increase coastal community resilience.


More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Oswego and the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University in Long Island, Brooklyn College and Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC and Kingston in the Hudson Valley.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has RSS, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly.