Geoengineering is fraught with problems, but research on three approaches could lead to the greatest climate benefits with the smallest chance of unintentional environmental harm. The authors propose a model for thinking about geoengineering based on the concept of restoration, suggesting the...

The use of exacted conservation easements is widespread. Yet, the study of the implications of their use has been minimal. Conservation easements are nonpossessory interests in land restricting a landowner’s ability to use her land in an otherwise permissible way, with the goal of yielding a...

Adapting to the many changes associated with climate change is an increasingly important issue and nowhere more so than in efforts to conserve private land. Interdisciplinary distributed graduate seminars conducted in Spring 2011 at six universities investigated whether current land conservation...

Conservation easement use is growing rapidly, as is the number of organizations looking to the tool to meet land conservation needs. Until recently, tribes had not been involved in conservation easement transactions. This book chapter examines the most common way tribes have become involved in...

The essence of a conservation easement as a static perpetual restriction is coming to a head with the understanding that the world is a changing place. This demonstration is nowhere more dramatic than in the context of global climate change. In response to this conflict, users of conservation...

The objective of the Clean Water Act is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters. To help achieve that objective, the Clean Water Act limits the ability to dredge or fill a wetland. To do so, one must first obtain a section 404 permit....

Renewable energy development is critical to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Solar energy projects can replace polluting fossil fuels, but because they are land-intensive, solar projects also have environmental costs. Large projects have the potential to provide hundreds of megawatts of...

Forty years ago, Congress passed many of the nation’s federal environmental laws. Congress and state legislatures recognized the growing environmental damage occurring in the country and passed laws restricting the actions of businesses, individuals, and government entities. One of the...

An abbreviated version of an article that earlier appeared in Harvard Environmental Law Review and reproduced as part of the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review. In this piece, we examine the potential increased use of real estate options as a mechanism for land conservation. In...

Across the United States, government agencies and energy developers are looking to agricultural land for development of renewable energy. One attraction of agricultural lands is that they are already relatively ecologically impaired compared with the previous solar development sites in the...