Mary Wood

Philip H. Knight Professor of Law,
Luvaas Faculty Fellow 2007-08

Mary Christina Wood is Philip H. Knight Professor of Law and Luvaas Faculty Fellow (2007-08) at the University of Oregon School of Law. She teaches property law, natural resources law, public trust law, federal Indian law, public lands law, wildlife law, and hazardous waste law. She is the Founding Director of the school's Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program and is Faculty Leader of the Program's Conservation Trust Project, Sustainable Land Use Project and Native Environmental Sovereignty Project. After graduating from Stanford Law School in 1987, she served as a judicial clerk on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She then practiced in the environmental/natural resources department of Perkins Coie, a Pacific Northwest law firm. In 1994 she received the University's Ersted Award for Distinguished Teaching and in 2002 she received the Orlando Hollis Faculty Teaching Award. Professor Wood is a co-author of a leading textbook on natural resources law (West, 2006) and has published extensively on climate crisis, natural resources, and native law issues. She is a frequent speaker on global warming issues and has received national and international attention for her sovereign trust approach to global climate policy. Professor Wood is currently working on a book entitled, Nature's Trust: A Legal Paradigm for Protecting Land and Natural Resources for Future Generations.

Full Biography

Recent Publications

"The Dawn of Planetary Patriotism: A Citizens' Call to Climate Defense," co-authored with Heather A. Brinton (forthcoming 2009).
To read an abstract of this forthcoming book, click here.

"CO2: The Public Trust, the Indian Trust, No Trust at All," in CLIMATE CHANGE READER (W.H. Rodgers, Jr. and M. Robinson-Dorn, eds.) Carolina Academic Press (forthcoming 2009).

"Nature's Trust: A Legal, Political and Moral Frame for Global Warming," reprinted in SOCIAL PROBLEMS (Anna Leon-Guerrero and Kristine Zentgraf, eds.) (forthcoming January 2009, Sage Publications, Inc.) (originally published by Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, May 2007).

Treatise on Public Trust Law (work in progress, 2008).

"Advancing the Sovereign Trust of Government to Safeguard the Environment for Present and Future Generations," Climate Legacy Initiative Project, (white paper) (May 2008).
To read an abstract of this article, click here.

"Law and Climate Change: Government's Atmospheric Trust Responsibility," 10 Environmental Law Reporter (September 2008).

"A Framework of China-U.S. Partnership to Address Global Warming," 3 China Environmental and Resource Law Review, Ocean University (Renmin Press, forthcoming Spring 2008).
To read an abstract of this article, click here.

"Nature's Trust: Reclaiming an Environmental Discourse," 2 Stratigraphy and Sedimentology of Oil-gas Basins, Geology Institute of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, Azerbaijan, Russia (forthcoming Spring 2008).

"Government's Atmospheric Trust Responsibility," Ecotone, Environmental Studies Program, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR (forthcoming Spring 2008).

"Government's Atmospheric Trust Responsibility," California Environmental Law Reporter (forthcoming, February 2008).

"Tribes as Trustees Again (Part I): The Emerging Tribal Role in the Conservation Trust Movement," Harvard Environmental Law Journal (with Zach Welker) (forthcoming Spring 2008); republished in The Sovereignty Symposium 2008 conference proceedings, http://www.oscn.net/sovereignty/default.aspx. To read an abstract of this article, click here.

"Tribes as Trustees Again (Part II): Evaluating Four Models of Tribal Participation in the Conservation Trust Movement," Stanford Environmental Law Journal (with Matthew O'Brien) (forthcoming Spring 2008); republished in The Sovereignty Symposium 2008 conference proceedings, http://www.oscn.net/sovereignty/default.aspx. To read an abstract of this article, click here.

Atmospheric Trust Obligation, chapter in ADJUDICATING CLIMATE CHANGE: SUB-NATIONAL, NATIONAL, AND SUPRA-NATIONAL APPROACHES (William C.G. Burns & Hari M. Osofsky, eds.) (forthcoming 2008, Cambridge University Press). To read an abstract of this article, click here.

"Courts as Guardians of the Global Trust" (article in progress, 2008).

NATURE'S TRUST (book work in progress).

"Beyond the 'Fiction' and 'Fantasy' of Geer's State Ownership Doctrine: A Post-Hughes Reiteration of the Sovereign Property Interest in Wildlife Populations" (work in progress, 2008).

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