Environmental Law Seminar: Constitutional Protection of Wilderness

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New York State enacted the first, and still the strongest, Constitutional provision for protection of an environmental value, wilderness. In 1894, a State Constitutional Convention proposed, and the voters adopted this mandate: “The lands of the state, now owned or hereafter acquired, constituting the forest preserve as now fixed by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be leases, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed.” NYS Constitution, Article XIV, Section 1. In emulation of New York’s Constitution, Pennsylvania adopted an environmental mandate in its Constitution, and Congress enacted the federal Wilderness Act to emulate New York. Other nations have adopted environmental provisions in their constitutions. Every decade New Yorkers decide whether to convene a new Constitutional Convention. In 1966 the New York Constitutional Convention proposed an Environmental Bill of Rights, but voters rejected the proffered new Constitution. In anticipation of the coming state-wide debate about revising the Constitution, this seminar will make a comparative study of how state constitutions provide for environmental protection, in the USA and in other countries. The specific theme of the class will be to critically research what New Yorkers could enact as new environmental constitutional provisions. At a minimum, there will be a debate about whether (a) to retain the “forever wild” clause in the Constitution “as is,” or (b) to strengthen its provisions, or (c) to weaken its provisions, or (d) to eliminate it. Over the decades, the State’s highest court has obliged the State to honor this Constitutional mandate, and the voters and both executive and legislative branches have enhanced and refined the “forever wild forest lands” in the Adirondack and Catskill…