The University of New Mexico School of Law’s Natural Resources Journal, the school’s oldest publication, hosts “Land Grants and the Law: A Symposium on the Disputed Legal Histories of New Mexico’s Land Grants,” Saturday, April 12, from 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. at the UNM School of Law.
New Mexico’s Spanish and Mexican land grants have been the subject of social and legal conflict since the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. Presentations at the symposium explore recent developments in the law, history and politics of the land grants, including a discussion of the 2004 Government Accountability Office’s report analyzing whether the federal government has fulfilled its obligation to grantees.
The relationship between land grant holders and the U.S. Forest Service, and how and why some community land grants have survived while others have been vanished are among topics to be discussed.
Speakers include:
· Susan Sawtelle, managing associate general counsel, and Jeff Malcolm, assistant director, GAO
· David Benavides and Ryan Golten, New Mexico Legal Aid Land and Water Rights Project
· Manuel García y Griego, director, UNM Southwest Hispanic Research Institute
· David Correia, assistant professor of geography, University of Maine Farmington
· Denise Holladay Damico, doctoral candidate in history, Brandeis University
· Mark Schiller, editor, La Jicarita News
· Carol Raish and Alice McSweeney, US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station
Costs are $65 for general admission, $40 for students, and free to UNM School of Law staff, faculty and students. Two Continuing Legal Education credits are available for attorneys. For more information, contact Susan Tackman, managing editor, Natural Resources Journal, at 277-4910 or tackman@law.unm.edu.
Media Contact: Benson Hendrix, (505) 277-1816; email: bhendrix@unm.edu