Since the beginning of the twentieth century, laws and the legal system have defined how private landowners and public administrators manage natural resources. However, statutes and regulations enacted during the past four decades have increased stakeholders’ and interest groups’ ability to challenge how these landowners and administrators manage natural resources. Administrative appeals and litigation of natural resource management decisions has increased accordingly and now influences what happens “on the ground” as much as economics, biology, and other “traditional” management factors. My research explores how administrative appeals, laws, and the legal system, affect forest and natural resources management.

Previous Research: During the past decade, my graduate students and I have used case studies and descriptive and inferential analysis of databases we developed, to investigate these affects. Our findings have addressed:

1. How federal judges review in natural resource management agencies” decisions;
   
2. Longitudinal trends in federal Endangered Species Act cases;
   
3. Whether federal judges review natural resource management cases differently than other cases;
   
4. Longitudinal trends in US Courts of Appeals’ review of National Forest cases; and
   
5. How federal judges make decisions in Endangered Species Act cases.
   
   

Current Research: My graduate students and I are currently:

1. Developing a database of all US Forest Service National Forest Management cases from 1989 to 2002. Ph.D. candidate, Denise Keele, is preparing manuscripts that: 1) examine descriptive trends in the database, 2) investigate temporal differences between types of cases, 3) analyzes whether published federal court cases are representative of unpublished cases, and 4) investigates how inter-court and intra-court institutional factors influence judges decisions in these cases. Masters student, Beth Gambino, is analyzing the database to learn: 1) who wins and loses when they sue the Forest Service, and 2) the relationship between plaintiffs and their attorneys in these cases.
   
2. Developing a database of all published Forest Service National Forest cases from 1905 to 2004. Masters student, Michael Cargill, is examining longitudinal trends in these cases.
   
3. Analyzing White and Green Mountain National Forest Administrative Appeals. Masters student, Lucas Westcott, is continuing ESF’s long tradition of administrative appeals analysis (see Don Floyd and René Germain), by investigating why some Forest Service projects are administratively appealed and some are not.