Volume 36, Issue 2

ESSAY

Subsistence at Risk: Failure to Act and NEPA Compliance in Post-ANILCA Alaska

Julie Lurman

Under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act federal agencies are compelled to evaluate all uses of federal lands to ensure that there will be no resulting adverse affect on subsistence resources. That evaluation is an agency action that triggers the necessity for some type of review under the National Environmental Policy Act.

ARTICLES

The Law of Fire: Reshaping Public Land Policy In an Era of Ecology and Litigation

Robert B. Keiter

This article provides a comprehensive review and analysis of the law governing wildfire on the public lands. It argues that fire should be fully integrated into natural resource management policy and addressed through NEPA and related agency planning processes.

Governing the Tongass: National Forest Conflict & Political Decision Making

Martin Nie

In this article, Professor Nie analyzes one of the longest running and most acrimonious environmental conflicts in the history of public lands management. The Tongass is used as a case study to examine forest conflicts and decision-making processes that go well beyond southeast Alaska. What does the Tongass teach us about public lands governance in general? Among other lessons, Nie demonstrates why intractable conflicts about forest management often move into alternative decision-making venues and processes, such as planning and the Courts. The article finishes by outlining a few possible reform measures and ways to move forward.

CLEAR THE AIR

Counterpoint: Opportunities Lost and Opportunities Gained: Separating Truth From Myth In the Western Ranching Debate

Marc Stimpert

Anti-grazing advocates claim that ranchers who graze on Western rangelands controlled and administered by the federal government have few legal rights and that grazing is incompatible with arid Western rangeland ecosystems. In truth, federal grazing rights are substantial, and properly managed grazing is compatible with arid Western rangeland ecosystems.

COMMENTS

Alternative Approaches to the CITES "Non-Detriment" Finding for Appendix II Species

James B. Murphy

Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) struggle to perform accurate assessments of the impact of trade on listed species, resulting in exports of these species at levels incompatible with their survival. For CITES to fully achieve its conservation goals, the Parties must explore methods of combining efforts with regional fisheries management organizations and third party certification bodies to determine whether trade in a listed specimen will be detrimental to the survival of the species as a whole.

CERCLA Choice-of-Law: Insurers' Attempts to Escape Their Own Quagmires

Jack Peterson

Because choice-of-law principles are inherently malleable, Congress should amend CERCLA to require the application of the state law that allows payment for CERCLA pollution when the outcome of litigation solely depends on that law being applied.