Lecture: Trip Van Noppen, "Citizen Environmental Enforcement and the Future of the Pacific Northwest"
Wednesday, April 23, 7:00 PM
Vollum lecture hall
This event is open to the public.
Mr. Van Noppen will describe the essential features of the unique American system of citizen environmental enforcement through the use of public interest litigation and will describe the pressing threats to citizens' ability to use the courts. He will focus on historic and current examples that are shaping life in the Pacific Northwest, including old growth forest protection, salmon restoration in the Columbia/Snake River system, plans to export coal and crude oil, and addressing climate change.
Donnell “Trip” Van Noppen is the President of Earthjustice, the nation’s premier public interest environmental law firm. From 2005 to 2007, he was Earthjustice’s Vice President for Litigation, working with the organization’s nine regional offices to enhance the clout and effectiveness of the litigation program.
Trip has degrees from Yale and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he clerked for a federal district judge from 1980-82. He then practiced law in Raleigh, NC, from 1982 until 1997, in a litigation firm emphasizing civil rights, employment, environmental, and toxic tort cases. In 1998, he joined the Southern Environmental Law Center and became Director of that organization’s Carolinas Office. Both in private practice and at SELC, Trip has handled a variety of environmental cases and cases involving access to the courts. He was named North Carolina’s “Air Conservationist of the Year” in 1996 and has taught Environmental Justice as a visiting scholar at Duke University.
Sponsored by the department of Environmental Studies.
For more information, contact Noelwah Netusil.
Submitted by Brittney Corrigan-McElroy.
Posted on Mar 24, 2014