The Program

Brochure

One of the greatest challenges facing the world today is to foster sustainable communities and ensure the environment’s long-term health. Meeting this challenge requires land use and environmental policies grounded in law, science, economics, ethics, psychology and politics. It also requires attention to the intersection of local, state, national and international policies. The Environmental and Land Use Law Program at the University of Virginia aims to develop leaders who combine knowledge in these fields with the skills to put sound policy into practice at all levels of government and in the private sector. The program joins outstanding legal teaching and scholarship with opportunities for interdisciplinary study and practical training. The faculty’s active involvement in local, regional and global issues, including climate change, helps develop a real-world sense of environmental law and policy as practiced today.

The Setting

Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Charlottesville and surrounding Albemarle County provide a beautiful and uniquely fruitful setting for the study of land use and environmental issues. The area faces urgent regional growth concerns, testing relationships among urban, suburban and rural communities, all at a scale that makes these issues realistically accessible to student investigators. The proximity of the Shenandoah National Park, the Jefferson National Forest and the Chesapeake Bay (the Law School is in the bay watershed) provides further opportunity to study problems in regional growth, natural resource policy and watershed management.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Professor Jonathan Z. Cannon
Director, Environmental and Land Use Law Program
Phone: (434) 924-3819

 

The Program | Curriculum & Courses | University Courses
Faculty and Selected Scholarship | Beyond the Curriculum