Environmental brief ~ Federal judge rules in favor of fish over farmers News
Environmental brief ~ Federal judge rules in favor of fish over farmers

[JURIST] Leading Tuesday's environmental law news, Judge Saundra Armstrong of the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] has ruled that the US Bureau of Reclamation [official website] must leave more water in the Klamath River basin to ensure survival of the threatened Coho salmon [ESA listing status]. The river runs from northern California to the Oregon coast and has been the source of controversy between farmers that want water for irrigation and those that want to protect the salmon. Last October, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [official website] remanded the case [JURIST report] to Judge Armstrong to allocate more water for the salmon. The Los Angeles Times has more.

In other environmental law news…

  • The UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs [official website] announced [press release] the new Climate Change Programme [PDF text] Tuesday. The plan [backgrounder] includes both the measures and policies currently in place to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and the priorities for future regulations. The London Evening Standard has more.
  • The Brazil Ministry of the Environment [official website, in Portuguese] announced late Sunday night that a large section of the Amazon rainforest will be declared a protected zone over the next three years. Approximately 84,000 square miles is slated for the designation. AP has more.
  • The Seattle Washington city council [official website] enacted [press release] new rules Monday to help restore urban streams and wetlands. The ordinance [text], which could go into effect as early as May 9, includes such measures as restricting pesticide use, requiring tree and plant replacement within 100 feet of lake and marine shorelines, and the "daylighting" of certain streams in the city. Daylighting is the practice of exposing streams that had been previously buried in underground pipes. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has more.
THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.