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GWC Welcomes Bill Hedden as Senior Fellow

Annie Carlozzi — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 21:33:37 +0000

GWC Welcomes Bill Hedden as Senior Fellow Annie Carlozzi Wed, 08/13/2025 - 15:33

Bill Hedden

In the movie Good Will Hunting, both Robin Williams and Matt Damon
make critical decisions in their lives because they’ve “gotta go see about a
girl.” Much the same thing happened to me at the conclusion of my
Harvard neurobiology studies when I gave up science and followed my
wife, Eleanor Bliss, to a wild valley in southeastern Utah. I’d never been
west of Pennsylvania before suddenly finding myself living full time
outside, building our home in a hayfield from which I could see Arches
National Park, the gorge of the Colorado River, three BLM Wilderness
Study Areas, and the Manti LaSal National Forest. For the next half
century, America’s public lands were the setting for our daily lives. We
drew our irrigation water from BLM lands, gathered stone for the house
and firewood for the winter from the national forest, and hiked and
kayaked and fished wherever we wanted. It was a hard place to get rich,
but a very good place to be poor.

I say I gave up science, but it occasionally came in handy or got me in
trouble, depending on your point of view. Soon after we got settled in our
new home, the U.S. Department of Energy came to Moab looking for a site for the nation’s high level nuclear waste repository. They especially liked the salt formations adjacent to Arches and Canyonlands, and the local politicians were excited about the economic development possibilities.
The common refrain was, “We dug it out of the ground here, so we have a
responsibility to take it back.” I began to tell people that high level waste is not the same as uranium ore, and sacrificing a glorious national park for
the repository might be a poor trade. Within no time, I was the face of the
opposition with a prominent seat on the Utah commission formally
consulting with the DOE. I recall testifying at a hearing with David Brower
when we had to run a gauntlet of enraged uranium miners and county
officials. Ultimately, the remoteness of the Utah sites and our opposition
helped result in the so-called Screw Nevada Bill, that let everybody off the
hook as long as they agreed Yucca Mountain had to take the waste. That
unsatisfying compromise was my introduction to environmental politics.

After falling into the deep end of nuclear waste policy, I began remedial
education about the West, serving as Utah’s representative on the board of High Country News with luminaries like Tom Bell and Ed and Betsy
Marston. I worked on national forest management issues for Robert
Redford’s Institute for Resource Management, and on wild and scenic river
designation for The Keystone Center. I was appointed by Governor Leavitt
to the Utah Board of Parks and Recreation and was a member of the
board of the Utah Chapter of The Nature Conservancy and the Southern
Utah Wilderness Alliance. Meanwhile, at home, Eleanor and I were raising
our two girls, I was the perennial president of the local irrigation company,
and I built custom furniture to keep the wolf from the door.

Somehow, that stew of local visibility and westwide involvement helped
get me elected to the Grand County Council in 1992 when the people
threw out the commissioners and changed the form of government. Seven essentially unpaid neophytes took charge of an insolvent 2.4 million acre county with two national parks, the nation’s busiest BLM recreation
district, a national forest, and the largest roadless area in the lower 48
states. Wilderness issues were on fire, we’d just had a recreation-run-
amok riot at the Slickrock bike trail, and the county was spending all its
mineral lease money on a deeply unpopular road across the Bookcliffs at
the same time our hospital was about to close from lack of that same
money. We had a steep learning curve. After I played a leading role in
killing the road and saving the hospital, I went to a meeting of Utah county commissioners and was shunned after being brusquely told, by the leader of a nearby county, “We like roads!”

As much fun as all that volunteer work was, our kids were getting ready to
go to college, so I took a job as the Utah Director of the Grand Canyon
Trust, marking what is still the only time a paid environmentalist has been a county councilperson in Utah. My older daughter, accustomed to my
working in the woodshop or garden, asked Eleanor, “Mom, why did dad
have to take this stupid, invisible job?” It got even worse when I was
promoted to Executive Director a few years later and began spending half
my time in Flagstaff.

A friend at SUWA once remarked that The Grand Canyon Trust is the
Swiss army knife of environmental groups. The Trust works on issues
across the spectrum. During my time, amid much else, we helped clean up
emissions from coal fired power plants and remove radioactive wastes
from the bank of the Colorado River. I negotiated deals to remove grazing
from over a million acres of public lands and bought two ranches covering
850,000 acres on the Grand Canyon’s North Rim. Ethan Amuck, who took
over when I retired, led the largest forest restoration program in U.S.
history in northern Arizona. Perhaps most significant, we created a
groundbreaking Native America program where my Navajo staff members
and their communities led the way in killing a proposal to build a tramway
into the heart of the Grand Canyon, and ultimately helped win designation
of the Bears Ears National Monument.

We were aided in all the work by a spectacularly accomplished Board of
Trustees, including David Getches and Charles Wilkinson. Both were dear
friends and served terms chairing the board. Thus, it is an honor and a
kind of homecoming for me to become associated with the Getches/
Wilkinson Center. I hope to repay my inestimable debt for all they taught
me by working to protect America’s public lands.

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Colorado River Remains a Key Focus of the GWC

Annie Carlozzi — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 19:33:07 +0000

Colorado River Remains a Key Focus of the GWC Annie Carlozzi Wed, 08/13/2025 - 13:33

Doug Kenney

As the economic, ecological and cultural centerpiece of the American Southwest, the increasingly dire condition of the Colorado River remains a central focus of GWC activities. Continuing a recent tradition, the GWC joined with the Water & Tribes Initiative in June to bring basin officials, Tribal leaders, water users, and river advocates to discuss the situation in: Turning Hindsight into Foresight: The Colorado River at a Crossroads. With roughly 350 in-person (and 115 Zoom) attendees, participants were tasked with identifying past experiences and lessons that can inform current challenges, beginning with the experiences of the Ancient Puebloans displaced by drought in the 13^th century, to efforts in the early 21^st century to craft the soon expiring 2007 Interim Guidelines, to ongoing efforts to craft new rules guiding river operations after 2026. Not surprisingly, the conversation was a lively union of technical analyses of law, policy and hydrology nested within a spiritually rich foundation acknowledging the deeply personal impact that the declining river has on the people and creatures that call the region home.

Efforts to craft new (post-2026) reservoir operating rules on the river dominate most Colorado River discourse at the moment, with the ongoing Environment Impact Statement (EIS) process expected to result in a Draft EIS by December and a Final EIS (and Record of Decision) by next summer. Those efforts have largely stalled over the last year as the Basin States have, unsuccessfully, attempted to craft a joint Alternative to be included in the analysis, a difficult proposition given that every road forward is likely to result in declining water availability for every state, a painful but mathematically inevitable result of life in a basin where snowmelt-driven natural flows have dropped nearly 20% since 2000. This reality was the backdrop of a public forum in late June where I was paired with Rebecca Mitchell, the Colorado official tasked with representing the state in these negotiations. Speaking before the crowd in Crested Butte, neither of us found much reason for optimism in current trends in climate and hydrology, a situation only magnified by the shockingly low runoff of local streams resulting from what seemed like a relatively healthy winter snowpack. No amount of interstate negotiation—or threats of interstate litigation—can overcome the increasingly consequential impact of warming in the basin.

This tension between the river we thought we had and the river that now exists runs through much of the work of the Colorado River Research Group (CRRG), hosted by the GWC but comprised of over a dozen prominent Colorado River scholars spread across the basin (and beyond). CRRG members are currently drafting a detailed summary of key issues and, in some cases, prescriptions for the river system, focusing on issues affecting nearly all sectors and sub-regions of the basin. It is an increasingly alarming review of trends that, collectively, illustrate the erosion of all the safety nets in the basin: reservoir storage, groundwater reserves, federal drought response funding, and technical support from agencies and universities engaged in Colorado River problem-solving.

It is a challenging time in the Colorado River Basin. More than ever, the GWC is focused on developing new leaders to bring ideas and energy to a basin in need of answers.

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GWC Welcomes Sam Kalen as Senior Fellow

Annie Carlozzi — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 18:57:38 +0000

GWC Welcomes Sam Kalen as Senior Fellow Annie Carlozzi Mon, 08/11/2025 - 12:57

GWC is excited to welcome two new Senior Fellows, Sam Kalen and Bill Hedden.

Sam Kalen is the inaugural IU McKinney Family Chair in Environmental Law at Indiana University McKinney School of Law. From 2009 to 2024 he was at the University of Wyoming College of Law and most recently served at Wyoming as the William T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law and Associate Dean. Professor Kalen’s teaching and scholarly interests focus on natural resources and public lands, environmental law, energy law, Federal Indian law, and administrative law. White at the Wyoming College of Law, he founded and then served as the co-director of the Center for Law and Energy Resources in the Rockies (later the Gina Guy Center for Land & Water). He is a co-author of a casebook on natural resources law and policy, a book on the Endangered Species Act, as well as a 2018 Cambridge University Press book chronicling the history of energy law and policy, entitled Energy Follies: Missteps, Fiascos, and Success of America’s Energy Policy; he also has authored numerous law review articles and book chapters. Before teaching, Professor Kalen practiced in Washington, D.C. for over 20 years, both in the private and public sectors. His private practice work focused principally on environment, energy, Native American, as well as public lands and natural resources law; and he worked primarily on public lands and natural resource matters when serving in the Solicitor’s Office at the Department of the Interior during the Clinton Administration. Immediately after law school, Professor Kalen began his career as a law clerk for Justice Warren D. Welliver of the Missouri Supreme Court. He earned his J.D. at Washington University School of Law, in St. Louis, MO, and his B.A. at Clark University, in Worcester, MA.

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Wyss Scholar Andrea Shipton Attends Summer Retreat

Annie Carlozzi — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 16:27:14 +0000

Wyss Scholar Andrea Shipton Attends Summer Retreat Annie Carlozzi Thu, 08/07/2025 - 10:27

Andrea Shipton

In late June, I attended a retreat with other law and graduate students in the Wyss Scholars Program. This event, held in Washington State this year, allowed the incoming class of scholars to spend time together and chat about our studies, summer work experience, and career goals. From those spending the summer with environmental law nonprofits to those working with local park organizations and doing vital field research, it was fascinating to hear what everyone has been up to in the broad field of U.S. land conservation, especially at such a critical time for much of these lands.

Thanks to the Wyss Scholars from Yale, who organized the retreat, we spent three nights in a gorgeous house, nestled on the shores of a small lake outside of Seattle. I arrived after dark on Thursday evening but rose at first light on Friday to check out my favorite aspect of our lodging—the proximity to public lands! I was especially excited to lace up my shoes since this was my first time ever visiting the Pacific Northwest—I had mapped out a trail running route days in advance in anticipation of this morning. The trails blew my mind—it’s wild how just a few steps into thick, lush, PNW forests feels like being miles deep into the wilderness. Massive slugs dotted the trail while birds ruled the mossy branches up high. The cool morning temperatures, cloudy skies, and low altitude also served as a welcome respite from my normal weekday summer adventures in Boulder.

The next forty-eight hours were filled with day trips to Seattle, plenty of paddling and swimming around the lake, a group hike, and lots of laughs and great conversation. We splashed around the lake on warm afternoons, waiting anxiously for the clouds to clear—which they finally did on Saturday afternoon, revealing a stunning Mount Rainier peeking out of the horizon to the southeast. We paused on trails to watch slugs inch out of harm’s way all while discussing the recent congressional attacks on public lands, the impacts of climate change, and other topics fascinating to a group of students passionate about land conservation.

I can’t thank the Wyss Foundation and the Yale cohort enough for putting together this incredible retreat. Not only was the local landscape breathtaking, but the time spent with other students who shared similar passions for land conservation was truly irreplaceable. I left Washington on Sunday morning feeling inspired by the work of my fellow Scholars and hopeful about the impacts young adults like us will make on the future of U.S. land conservation.

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Colorado Law �鶹��Ժ Attend the 71st Annual Natural Resources and Energy Law Institute

Annie Carlozzi — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 16:37:15 +0000

Colorado Law �鶹��Ժ Attend the 71st Annual Natural Resources and Energy Law Institute Annie Carlozzi Fri, 07/25/2025 - 10:37

Jacob Lehrman

From July 17-19, the Foundation for Natural Resources and Energy Law hosted the 71^st Annual Natural Resources and Energy Law Institute in Whistler, British Columbia. I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude to the Foundation for providing the funding that made this opportunity possible. Along with the Foundation Scholarship winners, Solomon Biers-Ariel and Emily Derrenbacker, the Foundation’s generosity and commitment to student engagement allowed for Colorado Law students Corinne Griffin, Danielle Polinske, and myself to attend this incredible event.

Right out of the gates, keynote speaker Professor Richard J. Lazarus gave a powerful presentation on the history of environmental law and the restrictions recent Supreme Court decisions have placed on environmental regulations. While the presentation left me frustrated by how these decisions have chipped away at hard fought environmental protections, it also filled me with a renewed sense of urgency to stay engaged and push for stronger laws to safeguard our planet.

As the conference moved forward, I found myself captivated by Professor Robin Kundis Craig’s presentation titled “Developing the Nation’s Other Water Resources – Saltwater Facilities and Critical Mineral Operations Meet Marine Critters.” Professor Kundis got right into the weeds of critical mineral operations on the seafloor, providing a detailed explanation of how the operations function and their implications for marine life. I am always eager to learn more about the actual the on-the-ground activities and industries that environmental laws and regulations seek to govern, and this presentation provided that and more.

Beyond the presentations, this conference provided plenty of opportunities to engage with fellow students, attorneys, and professors. It was truly inspiring to meet so many people who share a similar passion as myself and to see where that passion has taken them. Interacting with the attorneys allowed me to see the multitude of avenues a career in natural resources, energy, or environmental law can take you. It showed me that when you stay true to your personal values and pursue work you genuinely believe in, a fulfilling and successful career is always within reach.

My fellow Colorado Law attendees shared in my sense of inspiration and motivation as well. When Danielle Polinske was asked about her favorite part of the weekend was, she responded, “It was really nice getting to connect with other students from difference schools who are also passionate about environment law. Hearing about their experiences and goals reminded me that there is a whole community of future lawyers committed to making a difference in this field and it was amazing getting to join in that sense of purpose.”

When Corinne Griffin was asked about her experience, she spoke about the Portia’s Lunch for Women. “It was a unique experience to be in a room of all female lawyers. I’ve never been in a situation like it and found it to be very inspiring, especially hearing from individuals like Rebecca Watson. Hearing the hardships and wins of women who came before me from being one of the only few or only women in the room when practicing was enlightening and made me feel like the challenges of law school are more than worth it.”

Simply put, the 71^st Annual Natural Resources and Energy Law Institute was an unforgettable experience.

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Sept 4: GWC and AILP Gathering

Annie Carlozzi — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 20:40:01 +0000

Sept 4: GWC and AILP Gathering Annie Carlozzi Wed, 07/16/2025 - 14:40

The Getches-Wilkinson Center and American Indian Law Program are co-hosting a social event on Thursday, September 4^th, 2025 5-7pm in Schaden Commons.

Community Social for �鶹��Ժ, Faculty, Staff and Alumni

Please join the Getches-Wilkinson Center and the American Indian Law Program for an informal happy hour and community-building event. Everyone is welcome. 1L students are encouraged to attend.

You’ll learn more about Colorado Law School’s nationally ranked environmental and American Indian law programs.

You’ll have the opportunity to meet experienced faculty and alumni.

And you’ll enjoy free food and drink!

Co-hosted by ELS, NALSA, and ELJ.

The event is free to attend. Registration is required - Register Here

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Oct 22: Ruth Wright Distinguished Lecture in Natural Resources with John Leshy

Annie Carlozzi — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 16:27:37 +0000

Oct 22: Ruth Wright Distinguished Lecture in Natural Resources with John Leshy Annie Carlozzi Wed, 07/16/2025 - 10:27

The Getches-Wilkinson Center is pleased to present the 2025 Ruth Wright Distinguished Lecture in Natural Resources with John Leshy on Wed, Oct 22nd at the Wolf Law Building in Boulder, CO.

On Shaky Ground: America’s Public Lands Face an Uncertain Future

Laying groundwork for the Martz Symposium, Leshy will discuss current challenges to America’s public lands, starting with a proposal to include, in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that President Trump signed into law in early July, a mandate to sell off millions of acres. While that proposal failed after triggering widespread opposition from western Republicans, among many others, the OBBBA did contain several sweeping---if little-noticed---mandates aimed at industrializing many millions of acres of public lands. Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has taken aggressive steps, principally through deep personnel and budget cuts, to hollow out the four major federal land management agencies, apparently to persuade Americans that the federal government simply cannot manage these lands and thus make a case for transferring them to states and private interests.

The lecture will then address whether all this could fundamentally alter the objective of conserving large areas of land in national ownership, open to all, and managing them primarily for conservation, preservation, inspiration and recreation. That has been a primary objective of public land policy ever since the 1890s. It was then that---partly in reaction to the corruption and plunder by robber barons that marked the so-called Gilded Age---a movement flowered to conserve large areas of land in national ownership, leading to the public lands we see today. Now we are in a new Gilded Age, with the rich amassing unimaginable wealth while many ordinary Americans are stagnating. Leshy will conclude by discussing whether some rethinking of public land policy is in order, as calls grow for using these lands for, among other things, extracting critical minerals, upgrading the electrical grid, and siting renewable energy facilities, as support grows for streamlining governmental decision-making processes, as climate change exacerbates wildfires and droughts, and as recreational visits mushroom.

Wednesday, October 22nd

12-12:50pm Student Lunch with John Leshy in Room 206 - no registration required

6:00-7:30: Lecture: Wolf Law Building, Wittemyer Courtroom
7:30-8:30pm - Reception for all registered attendees

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required to attend and/or receive the livestream link.
In person and Virtual (Zoom) attendance available.
There will be a reception following the lecture. Details will be sent to registered participants prior to the event.

General Colorado CLE credits are pending for this event.

Registration is OPEN!

John Leshy

John Leshy is Professor Emeritus at the University of California College of the Law in San Francisco. His political history of America’s public lands, Our Common Ground, was published in 2022 by Yale University Press. Leshy was Solicitor (General Counsel) of the Interior Department throughout the Clinton Administration, and earlier served as special counsel to the Chair of the Natural Resources Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, a law professor at Arizona State University, Associate Solicitor of Interior for Energy and Resources in the Carter Administration, an attorney-advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and a litigator in the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. He headed the Interior Department transition team for Clinton-Gore in 1992 and was co-lead for Obama-Biden in 2008. He’s four times been a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1969, after earning an A.B. at Harvard College. His many publications include a book on the Mining Law of 1872 and co-authoring casebooks on public land and resources law (now in its 8th edition) and water law (now in its 7^th edition).

The Ruth Wright Distinguished Lecture in Natural Resources

In 2018, the GWC received a generous gift from the Wright Family Foundation to establish the Ruth Wright Distinguished Lecture in Natural Resources in honor of her inspiring legacy as a leader in western natural resources, land conservation, and environmental policy and advocacy. With this support, we look forward to bringing this free event to our community for years to come.

As a legislator, environmentalist, and historian, Ruth Wright dedicated her career to environmental issues and activism. While a student at Colorado Law, she led efforts to preserve Boulder’s open space and limit the height of buildings in Boulder to 55 feet to protect enjoyment of the unique landscape for the ages. In 1980, she was elected to the Colorado House of Representatives, where she represented Boulder until 1994. She was also the second woman ever to become the House minority leader, a role she held from 1986 until 1992. While serving in the House of Representatives, Wright continued to be a strategic champion for the environment, and has been recognized by such groups as the Colorado Wildlife Foundation, the ACLU, the Sierra Club, and Colorado Open Lands.

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Reflections on Julia Olson's Visit to Colorado Law

Annie Carlozzi — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 19:40:35 +0000

Reflections on Julia Olson's Visit to Colorado Law Annie Carlozzi Mon, 07/14/2025 - 13:40

Mariah Bowman

Hi, my name is Mariah Bowman and I am Colorado Law’s Wyss Scholar for the Class of 2025! Through The Wyss Foundation, I had the opportunity to host one of my heroes on campus to speak with students about her hard-won wisdom and career in environmental law.

Julia Olson, founder of Our Children’s Trust, visited us in April. Julia started Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit law firm, to fight for youth rights to a livable climate.

Before I met Julia, I knew her nonprofit was doing important work in this arena: they recently won a first-of-its kind case where youth secured a constitutional right to a healthy climate under Montana state law. But getting to hear about Julia’s vision first-hand helped me understand just how innovative and bold Our Children’s Trust has been over the last decade, and how sorely needed this kind of attitude is in the field of environmental law.

In law school, those of us who take classes in environmental law learn a great deal about procedural environmental rights secured under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and other similar laws. These laws ensure that the government must undertake certain procedures before it can harm the environment. And citizens can sue if the government harms the environment without taking the proper procedural steps. But all too often, the law does not actually, substantively protect Americans’ rights to a safe and healthy environment.

Our Children’s Trust boldly asserts that people have a substantive legal right to a livable climate—not just a procedural right to hold the government accountable to its procedural obligations. And, in Montana, they won.

It was inspiring to listen to Julia talk about not only their recent win, but the decade of losses that Our Children’s Trust has learned from to get there. She told us that every loss is a roadmap to success: judges will often lay out in their opinions how to better bring the case in its next iteration.

In a time when much of our country and our profession are scrambling to find courage and come up with new ways to fight for the things we believe in, Julia was the perfect leader to hear from this moment, because she has been doing both for decades. She has been imagining a new way forward and committing to that vision for a long time.

I very much enjoyed hearing her reflections on envisioning new legal theories, on building an institution that fills a void, on storytelling and communication, on how to best build on losses, and on how to build jurisprudence and a movement. Her remarks were practical, inspiring, and deeply needed in this moment.

I am very grateful to the Wyss Foundation for the opportunity to bring Julia to campus. I will be reflecting on—and carrying forward—all she shared for a long time to come.

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GWC Well Represented at Crested Butte Public Policy Forum

Annie Carlozzi — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 13:27:54 +0000

GWC Well Represented at Crested Butte Public Policy Forum Annie Carlozzi Wed, 07/02/2025 - 07:27

Douglas Kenney

On the evening of June 24, the GWC’s Doug Kenney joined Becky Mitchell, Colorado’s lead negotiator on Colorado River matters, at the Crested Butte Public Policy Forum for a conversation about current and future Colorado River issues. Well over 100 people packed the Center for the Arts for the public event that in previous years has featured speakers as varied as Ted Turner, Sandra Day O’Connor, and the GWC’s Senior Fellow Anne Castle.

The primary focus of discussion was how “big river” issues—that is, the changing rules determining how Colorado River supplies are shared amongst the seven states—impact the availability of water on Colorado’s West Slope. This required a review of the three numbers in the basin that increasingly are out of step: the amount of water entering the system each year through snowmelt and rain; the amount of water consumed by water users throughout the basin; and the amount of consumptive use that has been promised to water users in the Colorado River Compact and other laws. This mismatch of supplies, demands and allocations is not a new problem, but is of particular urgency now as Lakes Powell and Mead are two-thirds empty, the EIS process for new determining new reservoir operations is well underway, and the current year runoff is shaping up as one of the worst in decades.

The conversation was led by Julie Nania, an icon in Crested Butte for her work with High Country Conservation Advocates in protecting Mt. Emmons—the so-called “Red Lady”—from development into a molybdenum mine, as well as her service on the Board of Directors of the Upper Gunnison Water Conservancy District and as Executive Director and Faculty Chair of the Coldharbour Institute based at Western Colorado University. Julie began her career at Colorado Law (class of 2011), which included a post-graduate fellowship with the GWC from 2013-2014 working on tribal water rights. Julie stands as a great example of the GWC’s ongoing influence in protecting the resources and places that we all value.

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Oct 23 & 24: 2025 Martz Symposium on Public Lands

Annie Carlozzi — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 17:27:20 +0000

Oct 23 & 24: 2025 Martz Symposium on Public Lands Annie Carlozzi Mon, 06/23/2025 - 11:27

The Getches-Wilkinson Center will be convening the 2025 Martz Symposium on Public Lands: "Public Lands in Public Hands – Reflections on 50 Years of Retention History" on Thurs, Oct 23rd and Fri, Oct 24th at the Wolf Law Building in Boulder, CO.

Public Lands in Public Hands – Reflections on 50 Years of Retention History

The Federal Land Policy and Management Act marked a new chapter in the history of public lands in the United States. In that 1976 law, Congress declared a national policy that public lands be retained in federal ownership and control for the benefit of the American people. Over the last 50 years, that retention policy has led to far reaching consequences for people and places across the country. Today, public lands provide critical support for economic, environmental, social, and cultural values, contributing to the vitality of both urban and rural communities. Yet, the nation still struggles with the effects of dispossession and forced removal of Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands, most of which remain in the hands of the Federal government. Retention of public lands also presents certain challenges to states, localities, and private property owners.

Despite 50 years of retention policy and widespread public support for keeping public lands in public hands, the future of public lands remains uncertain. Some want the federal government to sell off federal public lands or give them to the States. Others are keen to defend and celebrate the retention policy and their love of public lands.

The legal landscape has also changed dramatically over the past 50 years. Public land planning has proved to be a mixed bag, but it engages the public on the critical issues facing public land planners, including resource development, grazing policy, land conservation, endangered species conservation, and the protection of cultural resources, among many other things. Modernizing the decision-making process has also taken center stage, with debates about strategies for making faster and smarter decisions. Adaptive management has also entered the public lands lexicon, although it sometimes seems more aspirational than real.

This year’s Martz Symposium takes a deep dive into the past, present, and future of our national policy of keeping public lands in public hands. The symposium will convene experts in public lands law and policy, advocates from across the political and policy spectrum, including Tribal leaders, experts on public opinion, and many other respected voices. Our goal will be to stimulate new thinking and fresh ideas, and to inspire a new generation of public lands leaders to build on the legacy from the past 50 years. Please join us for what promises to be an outstanding opportunity to engage with old and new friends and colleagues on one of the most important issues facing the American West.

Registration is OPEN!

Registration Rates Early Bird - Register prior to September 15, 2025
General (In person) $225
Remote Access Only $75
CU Faculty/Staff/Student (In person or Zoom) Free
*Buff OneCard number may be requested for validation of current University of Colorado Boulder faculty/staff/student status.
Colorado Law Alumni Only Reception Thurs, Oct 23 $15
*This is only available to Colorado Law alumni to attend the Martz Symposium Reception on Thurs, Oct 23rd. This does not grant access to the conference.

Registration Rates - Register on or after September 16, 2025
General (In person) $250
Remote Access Only $100
CU Faculty/Staff/Student (In person or Zoom) Free
*Buff OneCard number may be requested for validation of current University of Colorado Boulder faculty/staff/student status.
Colorado Law Alumni Only Reception Thurs, Oct 23 $15
*This is only available to Colorado Law alumni to attend the Martz Symposium Reception on Thurs, Oct 23rd. This does not grant access to the conference.

Registration will close Monday, October 20.
No refunds will be offered after October 1, 2025.
Remote access will be given to ALL registered attendees.
Conference reception, campus parking, and lunches/refreshments included with in person registration.
General Colorado CLE is pending.

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