Faculty > Mary Wood

Philip H. Knight Professor of Law, Morse Center Resident Scholar 2006-07, Luvaas Faculty Fellow 2007-08 Contact Room 338 Phone: (541) 346-3842 Email Mary Wood Courses American Indian Policy Seminar Indian Law Public Trust Law Natural Resources Law Property Wildlife Law Hazardous Waste Law Public Land Law Seminar

Mary Christina Wood is Philip H. Knight Professor of Law, Morse Center Resident Scholar (2006-07) 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

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

"Government's Atmospheric Trust Responsibility," Feature of the Week, Presidential Climate Action Project, www.climateactionproject.com (re-publication of a keynote address given at the 2007 J.E.L.L. Climate Change Conference) (December 4, 2007).

"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 as a Paradigm for Scientific Input in Policy Decisions," Abstract, Annual Conference of the American Geophysical Union, San Francisco, California (forthcoming December 2007) (with Alison Burchell, Ed Whitelaw, Bob Doppelt), available at http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm07/?content=program.
Nature's Trust Poster

"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).
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).
To read an abstract of this article, click here.

Climate Legacy Initiative, Consultant, 2007-present
Initiative formed to research and promote legal doctrines, principles, and rules appropriate for recognition by courts, legislatures, administrative agencies, and private sector institutions to safeguard present and future generations from harms resulting from global climate change; http://www.vermontlaw.edu/cli/index.cfm?doc_id=1403.
Climate Legacy Initiative Press Release February 2008

"Government's Atmospheric Trust Responsibility," Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation, Issue 22:2 (December 2007).

The Presidential Climate Action Project, Chapter 9, "Natural Resources Stewardship" (contributing author) http://www.climateactionproject.com (September 2007); "Nature's Trust: A Paradigm for Natural Resources Stewardship" (white paper) (December 2007).

Atmospheric Trust Obligation, chapter in ADJUDICATING CLIMATE CHANGE: SUB-NATIONAL, NATIONAL, AND SUPRA-NATIONAL APPROACHES (William C.G. Burns & Hari M. Osofsky, eds.) (forthcoming 2007, 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).

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