The following sample essay on “Texas Environmental Laws”: talks about Texas’ ways of protecting the environment and what laws are being passed to do so.
Texas from the beginning always has struggled with the United States federal government regarding policies and laws, especially in women health’s programs, environmental, and voting issues. The Environmental Protection Agency keeps being Texas’ most large opposite view to Federal Government under Gregg Abbott’s term. The Constitution of the United States of America does not have an amendment for the Rights to Fish, Hunt, and Harvest wildlife but there are a lot of Acts, Regulations, or Laws, also the Associations for Fisheries and Preservation, Control population of Wildlife such as Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), Clean Water Act, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, Fish and Wildlife Improvement Act, Fishermen’s Protective Act, International Fisheries Law, and Policy Portal, National Fish Habitat Conservation Act, NOAA Office of Law Enforcement, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, Office of Sustainable Fisheries, United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
All of This refers to the protection of endangered species of fish, the protection of their habitats, and the rebuilding of their population for generations.
For example, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MFCMA or MSA) could be seen as the most effective regulation of the United States for fishing and hunting wildlife. “Conserve fishery resources; Support enforcement of international fishing agreements and treaties; Promote fishing in line with conservation principles; Provide an implementation of fishery management plans (FMPs) to achieve optimal fishing yields while maintaining fish populations; Establish eight Regional Fishery Management Councils to administer fishery resources; Develop underutilized fisheries; Protect essential fish habitats, and Reduce ‘bycatch’ (fish unintentionally caught along with the targeted fish by fishing operations) and establishing fishery information monitoring systems” are all the regional councils that manage fish stocks while helping people could fish the most benefit for their lives.
This act has been made significant revised twice by the United States Congress, first in 1996 with the passage of the Sustainable Fisheries Act and in 2007 with the MSA Reauthorization Act, contributing to expanding the United States jurisdiction to 200 nautical miles from shore, plus not only fished by unregulated foreign fleets. Sustainable Fisheries Act was being revised in 1996 because overfishing caused fisheries business to go down. MSA Reauthorization Act in 2007 is the consequence of trying and building up the regulations and international cooperation.
In Article 1. Bill of Rights of the Texas Constitution of 1876, the Texas government also has section 34 for the Right to Hunt, Fish, and Harvest wildlife while managing and controlling it. Besides it, Texas also has the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department which shows everything related to recreational fishing. People should have bought a license to fish and the requirement that they should learn about where and how to fish legally, whether you release or keep and eat your catch depend on its size. In addition, according to the United States, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 was the first major U.S. law to address water pollution. Growing public awareness and concern for controlling water pollution led to sweeping amendments in 1972, now as known as the Clean Water Act (CWA) (History of the Clean Water Act). This is also a good policy for people even not just pay attention to the study the habits of fish and how to help them additional reproduction but forget their environment, where they live, and breeding to rebuild a new stable, sustainable population because “fish and shellfish can accumulate contaminants from the waters in which they live, so the Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS) monitors fish for the presence of environmental contaminants and alerts the public through bans (closures) and advisories when a threat to human health may occur from the consumption of contaminated fish.” (Fish Consumption Bans and Advisories).
There are different and specific areas, how much, and which species people in Texas should not consume. Bans are prohibited from consuming or fishing, keeping, or selling any kind of fish and/or shellfish, while the advisory is only just a recommendation for people to consider and watch the amount they put in their body per month or meal. Consequences to keeping Texans’ health always be good at the same time of let people enjoy their recreational fishing, Texas also has the Fish Consumption Bans and Advisories publicized by Texas Parks and Wildlife. The reason that both state and federal legislation enact those Acts, Laws, and Regulations is that since the mid-80s, overfishing brings bad results to the life of fishermen. The population of all large predator fish including tuna, whitetip shark in the Gulf of Mexico, marlin, small fish or other species on a global dropped dramatically, to over 90% are gone, compared to what they were in the 1950s. This affects the ecosystem in addition, fishermen have to prepare “bigger boats, gone farther and drag nets deeper, along the seafloors and damage deep water coral reefs” (Festa 77). Besides it, one of the objective reasons for overfishing “red snapper since the mid-1980s is bycatch of juveniles in shrimp trawls which is become the major source of mortality” (Diamond 1336). Marine reserves are close to areas of fishing, diving, or any events else. After all, these trying to recover and rebuild the overfished stocks of fish, “the stocks improved, but not by much” (Yeoman,54).
“Fishing activities were documented by observers in 2012 and 2013 to examine the effect of fishing season (open versus closed) for red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus) over the number, size, and proportion of red snapper caught were significantly greater during open-season trips than during closed seasons, but the number of red snapper discards was not significantly different between seasons” (Garner 157). This means that the population of red snappers after a few years after U. S federal fisheries’ management by Magnuson- Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Reauthorization Act 2007), bycatch and discard morality be minimized to the lowest but still not recover the inhabitants with super notable figures. However, if people could focus on controlling fishing pressure during the peak spawning by protection and regulation; spawning reserves could enhance more and maintain the stable and sustainability for generations. As “most importantly, the concept is intuitive to fishers, managers, conservations and the general public, and the measures necessary for effective monitoring, assessment and management are often relatively practical in scope and scale” (Erisman 137).
Red Snapper is one of the most important ingredients in Sushi restaurants or Omakase restaurants. Therefore, to conservation as much for the population and variety of species on East Coast Texas, Gulf of Mexico, especially red snapper for one of the economic features based on high-quality food and beverage experience, people should follow all the Laws, Policies, and Regulations from both state and federal legislation. Restoration cannot only come from the self-effort of one department, or one factor because all the sides work together, to create one enormous community. Furthermore, Texas has many Funds that go straight to conservative nature, such as the Gulf Environment Benefit Fund in Texas, the National Fish Habitat Action Plan with their plans, and policies but for a few goals such as preserving and rebuilding the number of wildlife in nature.
Texas Environmental Laws. (2022, Apr 28). Retrieved from http://envrexperts.com/free-essays/essay-about-texas-environmental-laws