DEBRA L. DONAHUE

PROFESSOR OF LAW

Office: 204 College of Law Building
Telephone: 307-766-2191
Email address: ddonahue@uwyo.edu

Debra L. Donahue, Winston S. Howard Distinguished Professor of Law, has been on the College of Law faculty since 1992. She teaches or has taught Public Land Law, Native American Natural Resources Law, Indian Law, Hazardous Waste & Water Pollution Law, Land Use, Natural Resources seminars, Legal Writing, and Administrative Law.

Professor Donahue spent 2002 in New Zealand, as a visiting lecturer/researcher at the University of Auckland School of Law in Auckland and the University of Canterbury School of Forestry in Christchurch. While in New Zealand, she consulted with law professors, ecologists, NGO administrators, and Maori iwi (tribal) officials on biodiversity and land conservation issues.

Professor Donahue has published books, book chapters, and articles in the areas of public land grazing policy, water pollution, land conservation, and endangered species protection. Her work on grazing was featured in numerous local and regional newspapers, Denver Post, and USA Today; she has done interviews for several radio and television stations, including NPR, High Country News Radio, and Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (“As It Happens”); and she was featured in the Sierra Club Documentary film “Desert or Pasture: Cattle and the American Southwest” (2002).

From 1999-2001 she served as a member of the National Research Council’s Water Science & Technology Board Committee on Riparian Zone Functioning and Strategies for Management. She is currently an Academic Trustee of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation and a Vice chair, Public Service, American Bar Association Public Lands Committee, 2004-present; she serves on Sinapu’s Advisory Board and on Western Watershed Project’s Science and Policy Advisory Board. In 2000 she was named the Wyoming Wildlife Federation’s Resource Conservationist of the Year.

Prior to joining the College of Law faculty, Professor Donahue served as staff attorney for the National Wildlife Federation in Anchorage, AK, and as judicial clerk for Judge Wade Brorby, Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, in Cheyenne, WY. Her pre-law positions included executive director, Wyoming Outdoor Council; environmental coordinator, Freeport Gold Company, Nevada; and various positions with federal land management agencies.

Education

B.S., Wildlife Science, Utah State University (Outstanding Senior, College of Natural

        Resources), 1975
M.S., Wildlife Biology (University Fellow), Texas A&M University, 1977
J.D., University of Colorado (Order of the Coif), 1989

Recent Publications

"Collapse or Meltdown?--Rangeland Ecosystem Services in Jeopardy," J. Land Use & Envtl. L. (forthcoming 2006).

“The Endangered Species Act and Its Current Set of Incentive Tools for Species Protection,” and “A Critical Examination of Economic Incentives to Promote Conservation,” Chapters 2 and 5, in Jason F. Shogren, ed., Species at Risk: Using Economic Incentives to Shelter Endangered Species on Private Property (U. Texas Press 2005).

“Western Grazing: The Capture of Grass, Ground, and Government,” 35 Envtl. L. 721 (2005).

“A Call for Native American Natural Resources in the Law School Curriculum,” Journal of Land, Resources, & Environmental Law 24 (2004): 211-19.

The Law and Practice of Open Space Covenants, New Zealand Journal of Environmental Law 7 (2003): 119-68.

Book review “Gilding the Sacred Cow: Ranching West of the 100th Meridian: Culture, Ecology and Economics," by Knight, Gilgert, and Marston, eds. Island Press, 2002, 35(2) Prairie Naturalist 121-23 (June 2003).

“Conservation and the Treaty: DoC’s Proposed Eradication of Kiore from Little Barrier Island,” feature article in ARLAN (Animal Rights Legal Advocates Network newsletter, New Zealand), July 2002.

Riparian Areas: Functions and Strategies for Management. National Research Council, Committee on Riparian Zone Functioning and Strategies for Management, Water Science and Technology Board, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology (National Academy Press 2002) (member of authoring committee).

“Justice for the Earth in the Twenty-first Century,” 1 Wyoming Law Review 373-401 (2000).

The Western Range Revisited: Removing Livestock from Public Lands to Conserve Native Biodiversity (University of Oklahoma Press 1999).

Conservation and the Law: A Dictionary (ABC-CLIO 1998).

“Book Review: Biodiversity and the Law (Island Press 1996),” 61 J. Wildlife Management 573 (1997).

“The Untapped Power of Clean Water Act Section 401,” 23 Ecology Law Quarterly 201-301 (1996).

Recent Presentations

"Teaching Native American Natural Resources," Association of American Law Schools Annual Convention, Washington, D.C., January 2007 (invited).

"Ecosystem Services of Rangelands," The Law & Policy of Ecosystem Services: A Symposium, Florida State University, April 2006.

"Western Grazing: The Capture of Grass, Ground, and Government.  The Rule of Capture and Its Consequences," Lewis & Clark Expedition Bicentennial Conference, Lewis & Clark Law School, Portland, OR, April 2005.

"The Sagebrush Sea," RangeNet Conference, Albuquerque, November 2004.

“Marketing a Myth: Bush’s Grazing Policies,” Stanford Law School Environmental Seminar Workshop, April 19, 2004.

“New Zealand: Paradise Lost?” UW College of Law faculty seminar, April 2003.

“Species and Habitat Protection: Comparison of Legal Tools in United States and New Zealand,” faculty seminar, University of Canterbury School of Forestry, Christchurch, New Zealand, October 2002.

“Where Fools Rush In: Rewards and Pitfalls of Interdisciplinary Scholarship,” University of Auckland School of Law, New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law, Social Ecology Seminar Series, May 2002.

“The Western Range Revisited,” University of Wyoming School of Environment and Natural Resources Campus Colloquium, October 2001.

“The Western Range Revisited,” Utah State University College of Natural Resources, graduate seminar/public lecture, Logan, UT, 18 September 2001.

“The Western Range Revisited,” plenary speaker, Cooper Ornithological Society Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM, April 2000.

“The Western Range Revisited,” featured speaker, Desert Tortoise Council 26th Annual Meeting, Tucson, AZ, March 2000.

Public land grazing, Austin Scott Annual Lecture, Political Science Department, University of Nebraska—Kearney, November 2000.