The Stegner Center’s 23rd Symposium, to be held March 15 to 16, 2018, will focus on “Public Lands in a Changing West.” With the nation approaching the 50th anniversary of the 1970 Public Land Law Review Commission report and with controversy continuing to embroil the federal public lands, this is an opportune time to examine the changes that have occurred during the past fifty years, the forces driving current controversies, and the opportunities to anticipate and resolve future conflicts. After reviewing how public land law and policy is evolving in a changing West, the symposium will examine three signature issues—the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument designation, the multi-jurisdictional sage grouse initiative, and the Crown of the Continent initiative in northern Montana—to identify key lessons learned and viable strategies for resolving contentious issues. It will conclude with a panel discussion to identify future policy changes and reforms that could improve resource management across the public domain and also garner public support for these vitally important lands. See the article on the symposium for a list of confirmed speakers.
Felix Mormann, Associate Professor of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law and Faculty Fellow, Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, Stanford University, will join the Stegner Center as the Thirteenth Annual Stegner Center Young Scholar on November 1, 2017. He will deliver a Young Scholar Lecture entitled “Clean Energy Equity” at the College of Law. His Young Scholar Lecture will be published in an upcoming environmental and natural resources law issue of the student-edited Utah Law Review.
On October 11, the Stegner Center will join with the American West Center, the J Willard Marriott Library, and the Utah State Historical Society to sponsor a program on “Diné Voices on Bears Ears,” which will include a screening of the short film Shash Jaa’: Bears Ears, followed by a panel discussion with four Diné (Navajo) scholars who have contributed to the dialogue on the Bears Ears National Monument. Focusing primarily on Diné perspectives, the panelists will address diverse narratives of the Bears Ears and trace how the development of this contested designation has affected Diné communities.
The Stegner Center will host a variety of speakers for their noon-hour Stegner Lecture and Green Bag Series. Speakers include the following:
- “Thank You Fossil Fuels and Good Night” with author Gregory Meehan
- “Dynamics of the Changing Bonneville Salt Flats” with Brenda B. Bowen, Director, Global Change and Sustainability Center, Associate Professor, Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah
- “The End of Sustainability: Learning to Live with the Trickster in Natural Resources Management” with Robin Kundis Craig, James I. Farr Presidential Endowed Professor of Law, University of Utah S.J. Quinney
- A reading by author and environmentalist Chip Ward from his new book Stony Mesa
- A presentation on transportation challenges on the Wasatch Front with Andrew Gruber, Executive Director, Wasatch Front Regional Council, Utah
Additional events will be added to the calendar. For additional events, and program details, including times and locations, see the Stegner Center online calendar at http://law.utah.edu/research/stegner/.