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Articles 31 - 60 of 143
Full-Text Articles in Law
An Evaluation Of U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Planning For Off-Road Vehicle Use, Robert L. Fischman, Vicky J. Meretsky, Katie Freeman, Alexi Lamm, Leah Missik, Scott Salmon
An Evaluation Of U.S. National Wildlife Refuge Planning For Off-Road Vehicle Use, Robert L. Fischman, Vicky J. Meretsky, Katie Freeman, Alexi Lamm, Leah Missik, Scott Salmon
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Off-road vehicles (hereafter, ORVs) rank high among public-land management challenges because they are popular, often impair environmental conditions, and may cause conflicts with other recreational users. Unit-level planning for federal lands increasingly translates broad, system-wide objectives, such as maintenance of ecological integrity, into place-based limitations on ORV use to minimize and mitigate adverse impacts on wildlife. We reviewed 176 planning documents covering 313 National Wildlife Refuges (hereafter, Refuges) to understand how planning supports or undermines ORV recreation management. These plans offer an important perspective on ORV management because the Refuges are a large, diverse system of conservation lands where recreation …
Judging Adaptive Management Practices Of U.S. Agencies, Robert L. Fischman, J. B. Ruhl
Judging Adaptive Management Practices Of U.S. Agencies, Robert L. Fischman, J. B. Ruhl
Articles by Maurer Faculty
All U.S. federal agencies administering environmental laws purport to practice adaptive management (AM), but little is known about how they actually implement this conservation tool. A gap between the theory and practice of AM is revealed in judicial decisions reviewing agency adaptive management plans. We analyzed all U.S. federal court opinions published through 1 January 2015 to identify the agency AM practices courts found most deficient. The shortcomings included lack of clear objectives and processes, monitoring thresholds, and defined actions triggered by thresholds. This trio of agency shortcuts around critical, iterative steps characterizes what we call AM-lite. Passive AM differs …
Leveraging Federal Land Plans Into Landscape Conservation, Robert L. Fischman
Leveraging Federal Land Plans Into Landscape Conservation, Robert L. Fischman
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Professor Fischman’s article suggests several ways in which a mandated unit-level (e.g. an individual national forest) plan can better contribute to goals of a larger region (e.g. the Willamette River watershed) and of federal agencies (e.g. mandates to maintain ecological integrity). The scientific literature is largely in agreement that achieving ecological integrity, adaptive management, and climate change resiliency all require large-scale coordination across property boundaries and jurisdictions. The author takes these widely accepted findings as a starting point and shows how public agencies can implement effective practices. The article attempts to integrate traditional regulatory analysis with actual planning practices as …
Lessons From Pollution Control: Response To Heller And Hobbs 2014, Robert L. Fischman, James Salzman
Lessons From Pollution Control: Response To Heller And Hobbs 2014, Robert L. Fischman, James Salzman
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Heller and Hobbs (2014) provide an incisive analysis of the challenges inherent in setting endpoint states as conservation goals. The social construct of nature, nonequilibrium ecosystems, global climate change, large-scale transformations of the landscape, and increasing population and economic activity confound efforts to establish conservation goals. Stakeholders often disagree on endpoint targets, whereas competing notions of historic fidelity and future flexibility frustrate our ability to articulate success, never mind actually achieve it. As Heller and Hobbs describe, this leaves managers in the bind of finding the “balance between future-looking management emphasizing change and past-looking management emphasizing persistence.” As a result, …
Advantages Of A Polycentric Approach To Climate Change Policy, Daniel H. Cole
Advantages Of A Polycentric Approach To Climate Change Policy, Daniel H. Cole
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Lack of progress in global climate negotiations has led scholars to reconsider polycentric approaches to climate policy. Several examples of subglobal mechanisms to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions have been touted, but it remains unclear why they might achieve better climate outcomes than global negotiations alone. Decades of work conducted by researchers associated with the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University have emphasized two chief advantages of polycentric approaches over monocentric ones: they provide more opportunities for experimentation and learning to improve policies over time, and they increase communications and interactions — formal and …
The Problem Of Shared Irresponsibility In International Climate Law, Daniel H. Cole
The Problem Of Shared Irresponsibility In International Climate Law, Daniel H. Cole
Articles by Maurer Faculty
States have treaty-based and customary international law-based responsibilities to ensure that greenhouse gas emissions emanating from their territory do not cause transboundary harm. However, those international legal responsibilities conflict with the observed behavior of states, which suggests a general rule of irresponsible treatment of the global commons. This paper, written for a conference (and eventual book) on shared responsibility in international law, examines that conflict and two potential mechanisms for resolving it: (1) international litigation and (2) various types of polycentric approaches to climate governance.
Several international legal scholars have been advocating litigation as a means of compensating victims and …
Planning For Adaptation To Climate Change: Lessons From The Us National Wildlife Refuge System, Robert L. Fischman, Vicky J. Meretsky, Alexei Babko, Michael Kennedy, Lei Liu, Michelle Robinson
Planning For Adaptation To Climate Change: Lessons From The Us National Wildlife Refuge System, Robert L. Fischman, Vicky J. Meretsky, Alexei Babko, Michael Kennedy, Lei Liu, Michelle Robinson
Articles by Maurer Faculty
US national wildlife refuges have recent, detailed management plans illustrating the state of planning for climate-change adaptation in protected areas. Discussion of and prescriptions for addressing climate change increased in refuge plans between 2005 and 2010 but decreased in 2011. The plans respond to some climate-change impacts on biodiversity and call for monitoring but with little clarity regarding how to act on monitoring results and scant attention to future changes in phenology and community composition. The threats posed by sea-level rise generated the best-developed plan prescriptions. Examples of excellent prescriptions provide models for future planning. Some decision-support tools, such as …
Learning From Conservation Planning For The U.S. National Wildlife Refuges, Robert L. Fischman, Vicky J. Meretsky
Learning From Conservation Planning For The U.S. National Wildlife Refuges, Robert L. Fischman, Vicky J. Meretsky
Articles by Maurer Faculty
The U.S. National Wildlife Refuge System has nearly completed its first round of unit-level, comprehensive conservation plans (CCPs) and will soon begin required revisions. Laws and policies governing refuge planning emphasize ecological integrity, landscape-scale conservation, and adaptive management. We evaluated 185 CCPs completed during 2005–2011, which cover 324 of 555 national wildlife refuges. We reviewed CCP prescriptions addressing 5 common conservation issues (habitat and game, nongame, imperiled, and invasive species) and 3 specialized topics (landscape-scale conservation, climate change, and environmental quality). Common conservation issues received prescriptions in >90% of CCPs. Specialized topics received more variable treatment. Prescriptions for aquatic connectivity, …
Introductory Remarks. Arctic Law: The Challenges Of Governance In The Changing Arctic, Austen L. Parrish
Introductory Remarks. Arctic Law: The Challenges Of Governance In The Changing Arctic, Austen L. Parrish
Articles by Maurer Faculty
No abstract provided.
Law, Politics, And Cost-Benefit Analysis, Daniel H. Cole
Law, Politics, And Cost-Benefit Analysis, Daniel H. Cole
Articles by Maurer Faculty
This Article explores the significant role cost–benefit analysis (CBA) plays in facilitating or impeding legislative and regulatory policy decisions. The Article centers around three case studies of CBAs the EPA prepared under three different presidents: (1) Clinton Administration changes to Clean Air Act air quality standards for ozone and particulate matter; (2) President Obama’s recent decision to suspend the EPA’s reconsideration of the Bush Administration’s air quality standard for ozone; and (3) the George W. Bush Administration’s “Clear Skies” legislative initiative. The first two case studies demonstrate, between them, how well-constructed CBAs can facilitate social-welfare-enhancing and impede welfare-reducing rules, even …
Statutory Reform To Protect Migrations As Phenomena Of Abundance, W. William Weeks, Jeffrey B. Hyman, Andrea Need
Statutory Reform To Protect Migrations As Phenomena Of Abundance, W. William Weeks, Jeffrey B. Hyman, Andrea Need
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Animal migrations capture the human mind and heart like few other natural phenomena. Migrations provide ecological, psychological (e.g., aesthetic), cultural, and economic benefits. Increasingly, though, migrations are being recognized as threatened phenomena-that is, spectacular aspects of the life history of animal species often involving large numbers of individuals, but which are threatened with impoverishment or demise, even though the species per se may not be in peril. Migration phenomena are themselves worthy of protection, as a category of biodiversity Yet, conserving migratory populations and their migrations is particularly problematic. Migratory animals are especially vulnerable to a variety of threats because …
Beyond Trust Species: The Conservation Potential Of The National Wildlife Refuge System In The Wake Of Climate Change, Robert L. Fischman, Robert Adamcik
Beyond Trust Species: The Conservation Potential Of The National Wildlife Refuge System In The Wake Of Climate Change, Robert L. Fischman, Robert Adamcik
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Over the last two decades, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) has come to define its conservation mission in the context of species protection. The concept of “trust species” is now a common focal point for the myriad responsibilities of the FWS. This has become problematic for one of the major programs of the agency: management of the world’s largest biodiversity conservation network, the national wildlife refuge system (“NWRS”). A major legislative overhaul of the NWRS charter and the imperatives of climate change adaptation have weakened the concept as a reliable touchstone for NWRS management and expansion. The FWS …
From Global To Polycentric Climate Governance, Daniel H. Cole
From Global To Polycentric Climate Governance, Daniel H. Cole
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Global governance institutions for climate change, such as those established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, have so far failed to make a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Following the lead of Elinor Ostrom, this paper offers an alternative theoretical framework for reconstructing global climate policy in accordance with the polycentric approach to governance pioneered in the early 1960s by Vincent Ostrom, Charles Tiebout, and Robert Warren. Instead of a thoroughly top-down global regime, in which lower levels of government simply carry out the mandates of international negotiators, a polycentric approach provides …
The Story Of Kleppe V. New Mexico: The Sagebrush Rebellion As Un-Cooperative Federalism, Robert L. Fischman, Jeremiah Williamson
The Story Of Kleppe V. New Mexico: The Sagebrush Rebellion As Un-Cooperative Federalism, Robert L. Fischman, Jeremiah Williamson
Articles by Maurer Faculty
The story of Kleppe v. New Mexico dramatizes how assertion of federal power advancing national conservation objectives collided with traditional, local economic interests on public lands in the 1970s. This article connects that history with current approaches to natural resources federalism. New Mexico challenged the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, which diminished both state jurisdiction and rancher influence over public rangelands. In response, the Supreme Court resoundingly approved federal authority to reprioritize uses of the public resources, including wildlife, and spurred a lasting backlash in the West. Further legislation passed in the wake of Kleppe transformed this unrest into …
Corporate Social Responsibility And Firm Compliance: Lessons From The International Law-International Relations Discourse, Christiana Ochoa
Corporate Social Responsibility And Firm Compliance: Lessons From The International Law-International Relations Discourse, Christiana Ochoa
Articles by Maurer Faculty
There has been a long and fruitful discourse between and among legal academics and political scientists, known as international law (IL)-international relations (IL) scholarship. A great deal of that scholarship has discussed the effectiveness of particular IL regimes, usually as part of a larger discourse regarding the question of compliance with IL or international institutions, more generally, including agreed norms and soft law. This field of IL-IR scholarship has taken a fairly Westphalian and Weberian view of international law and of international relations, viewing states as the subjects of international law and, thus, seeing states as its subjects of study. …
Migration Conservation: A View From Above, Robert L. Fischman
Migration Conservation: A View From Above, Robert L. Fischman
Articles by Maurer Faculty
The extinction prevention focus of natural resources policy diverts attention from important issues of ecological integrity and adaptation to climate change. Animal migration conservation serves as a bridge from the imperiled species problem to the more spatially and temporally difficult problems surrounding climate change adaptation. Conserving abundant animal migrations both strengthens the resilience of the ecosystems in which they function and tests the resilience of social institutions responsible for adaptation. This essay synthesizes the findings of a two-year, interdisciplinary study of animal migration conservation. It also introduces the articles that follow in a symposium issue of the journal, Environmental Law.
A Tradable Conservation Easement For Vulnerable Conservation Objectives, W. William Weeks
A Tradable Conservation Easement For Vulnerable Conservation Objectives, W. William Weeks
Articles by Maurer Faculty
The critical conservation objectives in some conservation easements will probably be compromised by the effects of climate change in the relatively near future. Prompted to consider that likelihood, we can similarly predict that landscape fragmentation, invasive species, and other catastrophes— anthropogenic and natural—may also seriously diminish the capacity of particular parcels of land to serve narrowly defined conservation purposes, and especially, the conservation of a particular element of biodiversity.
The Legal Challenge Of Protecting Animal Migrations As Phenomena Of Abundance, Robert L. Fischman, Jeffrey B. Hyman
The Legal Challenge Of Protecting Animal Migrations As Phenomena Of Abundance, Robert L. Fischman, Jeffrey B. Hyman
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Animal migrations are as familiar as geese in the sky on a fall afternoon and as mysterious as the peregrinations of sea turtles across thousands of miles of open ocean. This article discusses the distinguishing attributes of animal migrations, why they are important to biodiversity conservation, and the legal challenges posed by migration conservation. In particular, the article focuses on those aspects of migration conservation that existing law, dominated by imperiled species protection, fails to address. It consequently suggests law reforms that would better conserve animal migrations. A step toward serious legal efforts to protect the process and function of …
Adaptive Management In The Courts, Robert L. Fischman, J. B. Ruhl
Adaptive Management In The Courts, Robert L. Fischman, J. B. Ruhl
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Adaptive management has become the tonic of natural resources policy. With its core idea of “learning while doing,” adaptive management has infused the natural resources policy world to the point of ubiquity, surfacing in everything from mundane agency permits to grand presidential proclamations. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to suggest that these days adaptive management is natural resources policy. But is it working? Does appending “adaptive” in front of “management” somehow make natural resources policy, which has always been about balancing competing claims to nature’s bounty, something more and better? Many legal and policy scholars have asked that question, with …
Hicks V. Dowd, Conservation Easements, And The Charitable Trust Doctrine: Setting The Record Straight, W. William Weeks, Nancy A. Mclaughlin
Hicks V. Dowd, Conservation Easements, And The Charitable Trust Doctrine: Setting The Record Straight, W. William Weeks, Nancy A. Mclaughlin
Articles by Maurer Faculty
This is the fourth in an exchange of articles published by the Wyoming Law Review discussing the application of charitable trust principles to conservation easements conveyed as charitable gifts. In 2002, Johnson County, Wyoming, attempted to terminate a conservation easement that had been conveyed to the County as a tax-deductible charitable gift. The County's actions were challenged, first in a suit brought by a resident of the County, Hicks v. Dowd, and then in a suit brought by the Wyoming Attorney General, Salzburg v. Dowd. The over six years of litigation associated with the easement's attempted termination has been the …
The Legal Challenge Of Protecting Animal Migrations As Phenomena Of Abundance, Robert L. Fischman, Jeffrey B. Hyman
The Legal Challenge Of Protecting Animal Migrations As Phenomena Of Abundance, Robert L. Fischman, Jeffrey B. Hyman
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Animal migrations are as familiar as geese in the sky on a fall afternoon and as mysterious as the peregrinations of sea turtles across thousands of miles of open ocean. This article discusses the distinguishing attributes of animal migrations, why they are important to biodiversity conservation, and the legal challenges posed by migration conservation. In particular, the article focuses on those aspects of migration conservation that existing law, dominated by imperiled species protection, fails to address. It consequently suggests law reforms that would better conserve animal migrations. A step toward serious legal efforts to protect the process and function of …
In Defense Of Conservation Easements: A Response To The End Of Perpetuity, W. William Weeks, Nancy A. Mclaughlin
In Defense Of Conservation Easements: A Response To The End Of Perpetuity, W. William Weeks, Nancy A. Mclaughlin
Articles by Maurer Faculty
No abstract provided.