A law student group focused on environmental issues in Puerto Rico has received the ABA Law Student Division’s Judy M. Weightman Memorial Public Interest Award.
The Division honored University of Puerto Rico School of Law for its efforts to serve the public interest as it worked to inform and educate the community regarding environmental issues. The award was presented at the ABA Annual Meeting last August in San Francisco.
Named in honor of a law professor and public interest advocate at the University of Hawaii who died in 1998, the award recognizes excellence in activities that promote a commitment to community service through public interest projects and programming.
In 2005, Puerto Rico School of Law students concerned about environmental issues in Puerto Rico established Asociación Nacional de Derecho Ambiental (ANDA). Just a few short months later, ANDA organized its first environmental conference.
At the first conference, several hundred participants from community and environmental organizations in Puerto Rico gathered during two Saturdays to listen as scientists, legislative assistants, urban planners, law school faculty, and members of the media presented information on the history of Puerto Rico’s environmental struggles.
“The conference walked participants through the basis for environmental law in Puerto Rico all the way to the specific actions we could take as organizations,” says Camilla Feibelman, coordinator of the Sierra Club of Puerto Rico.
The conference also included a photography exhibition to promote awareness of current environmental issues, field trips so students could visit environmentally sensitive communities, and community orientations that allowed people in different parts of the island to learn from community leaders.
The conference was such a success that students organized a second conference in February 2007. The second conference focused on coastal issues and was designed to present alternatives and legal education to coastal communities in Puerto Rico. Participants filled rooms at the law school to learn about coastal zone protection initiatives and public access to its coastal zones, an important natural resource of Puerto Rico.
Drawing on their available resources, ANDA enlisted law school faculty who teach constitutional law, administrative law, corporations, property law, contracts, and government law to speak at the events. These events taught community leaders and organizations legal principles that impact their environmental work.
Liana Fiol-Matta , an associate justice on the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, wrote on behalf of ANDA, saying that the work of ANDA benefited both the students and the community.
ANDA lets law students be proactive in the education of their communities, which allows them to “better understand their environmental issues as well as the legal process,” says Fiol-Matta. “Communities are then better equipped to exercise their rights to an unpolluted, contamination-free environment, and to act on behalf of Puerto Rico’s natural resources.”
In a short period of time, a small group of students has made an incredible impact on the environmental movement in Puerto Rico. They’ve offered education and assistance to people throughout the island. As such, they have established themselves as a valuable resource to their public.
“Without ANDA’s work,” says Feibelman, “we might have remained focused on our own small issues not the big picture.”
Kristi Lemoine, a third-year student at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, is Student Lawyer’s student editor.
