LAW-5710 NATURAL RESOURCES SEMINAR
The Natural Resource Seminar is a foundational survey course concerning the laws and policies related to management of natural resources. Natural resources include public lands, timber, fisheries, water, oil, natural gas and minerals, wetlands, forests, rangelands, wildlife and vegetation (including biodiversity), ecosystems, and even climate. Conservation law and policy and geography are both important considerations in the study of natural resources. The resources typically exist in particular places, with each place having its own ecological, socio-cultural, political, aesthetic, economic, and moral and/or spiritual characteristics. Conservation creates a fundamental tension between use and consumption of natural resources and the protection and preservation of nature for future generations. The course introduces differences in philosophical viewpoints between anthropocentric and ecocentric systems and examines whether conventional conservation measures promote true sustainability and healthy, diverse, and robust ecosystems. This course makes substantial use of cases and problems to put natural resource issues in the context of their complex, place-based characteristics to explore real-world implications beyond the level of pure abstraction. To further develop depth of understanding, students will choose a topic of interest and write a twenty to thirty page research paper (thirty pages minimum if writing to try to satisfy the Upper Level Writing Requirement). Students will also present the results of their research in a thirty-minute presentation to the class. Because the class depends on student interests, each student who enrolls will be able to focus on a subject of particular interest to that student; as a necessary corollary, the subject matters of emphasis will correspond to the areas where students are most interested. t
Distribution
Law