ABOUT PETER VAN TUYN
Partner, Bessenyey & Van Tuyn, L.L.C., Anchorage, Alaska.
Peter Van Tuyn counsels and represents clients concerning the full spectrum of environmental issues in Alaska. Mr. Van Tuyn has litigated cases at all levels of the federal and Alaska judiciary, and advocated for his clients before all major resource agencies in the federal and Alaska governments. He has also worked for his clients supporting or opposing legislation in the United Stated Congress, and has been invited to testify numerous times in front of U.S. Senate and House committees on a variety of issues.
Mr. Van Tuyn is frequently invited to speak at conferences and in other public and private fora about natural resource issues in Alaska.
Issues on which Mr. Van Tuyn works include:
* public land management
* oil and gas exploration and development
* marine fisheries management
* mining
* land use and zoning
* transportation projects
Since 2001 Mr. Van Tuyn has been an adjunct professor at Vermont Law School, where he teaches a course entitled “Fisheries and the Oceans” in the Masters in Environmental Law program.
Prior to going into private practice, Mr. Van Tuyn was the litigation director of Trustees for Alaska, a non-profit public interest environmental law firm. In that capacity he represented conservation and Alaska Native community clients on nearly every major natural resource issue facing Alaska from the early 1990’s through the early 2000’s. Examples of some of the issues with which he dealt in that capacity include protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from efforts to authorize oil and gas activities; protection of the endangered Steller sea lion, preventing snowmachining in the core Wilderness areas of Denali National Park, halting the Copper River Highway, advocating for the depleted Cook Inlet beluga whales, protecting the conservation legacy and intent of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, and many others.
He has also been a trial attorney with the Environment Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he represented the United States in endangered species and fisheries litigation in federal district courts throughout the United States. His clients included the Forest Service (U.S. Department of Agriculture), the Fish and Wildlife Service (U.S. Department of the Interior), and the National Marine Fisheries Service (U.S. Department of Commerce). Among other cases handled while at DOJ, Mr. Van Tuyn defended the United States against lawsuits aimed at preventing the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park and lawsuits concerning the collapse of fisheries off the coast of New England.
Mr. Van Tuyn also served as a law clerk to Justice Allen T. Compton of the Alaska Supreme Court.
Mr. Van Tuyn graduated in 1989 from Vermont Law School with a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, and a Masters in Environmental Law, magna cum laude. Mr. Van Tuyn was also Environmental Editor of the Vermont Law Review.
Mr. Van Tuyn is currently on the board of the Kincaid Project Group, which is working to create world-class recreational opportunities and facilities at Kincaid Park in Anchorage Alaska.
He was also a founding member and long-time Board Director of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council and Alaska Conservation Voters. Alaska Marine Conservation Council is a community-based organization of coastal residents and others whose ways of life, and often livelihood, depend on healthy marine ecosystems. Alaska Conservation Voters works to protect Alaska's environment through public education and advocacy, and supports pro-conservation candidates for public office.
Mr. Van Tuyn has commercial fished in the Aleutian Islands – set and drift net fishing for salmon and longlining for halibut.