List of Publications: click here

Research Interests:
My research interests include both ecological and social dimensions of wildland ecosystems, focusing primarily on rangelands. Current and past projects have addressed the following themes: community-based and collaborative natural resource management; traditional and local ecological knowledge; pastoralism and pastoral development; participatory research; effects of livestock grazing and other disturbances on the structure and function of rangeland ecosystems.

My overarching goal is to identify the practices and institutions needed to sustain ecological and livelihood systems in rangeland landscapes. I approach this problem by seeking to understand the ecological dynamics of these systems, particularly their responses to climatic variation and disturbance regimes; identifying management practices that help maintain and are compatible with the inherent variation of these ecosystems; and investigating institutional arrangements that facilitate or enforce sustainable management practices. I am especially interested in how different forms of knowledge and expertise can be integrated and applied to the stewardship of ecological systems.

Selected Current and Recent Projects:
A Range Management Curriculum and Participatory Planning Project for the Tohono O'odham Nation (2002-2005)
The unique social, cultural, and historical circumstances of livestock grazing on the Tohono O'odham Nation require that rangeland science and management be adapted to the specific biophysical and cultural landscapes on the Tohono O'odham Nation. We believe that resource management is most effective when local resource users are directly involved in management planning and implementation. To advance our goal of better stewardship using a culturally specific, community-based approach, we partnered with several organizations on the Nation to initiate a project combining the collaborative development and implementation of a rangeland management curriculum with a participatory range management planning process.

Southwest Rangelands Invasive Plants Initiative (2000-2004)
This multi-state, multi-institution research and outreach initiative is premised on the belief that local, citizen-based approaches to invasive plant management are the key to successful weed prevention and control in the Southwest. Our component of the research has two objectives: 1) to describe the variety of local weed management institutions operating in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, and 2) to compare the effectiveness of different local institutions with respect to their on-the-ground management activities, educational efforts, and effective use of available resources.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Beluga Whales: Local Documentation and Cooperative Application in Alaska (1999-2003)
My contribution to this project is a qualitative study of the roles that science and traditional knowledge play in the Alaska Beluga Whale Committee, a co-management organization composed of Native hunters, scientists and agency managers.

Collaborative Resource Management, Local Knowledge, and Rangeland Health (2000-2005)
This project seeks to identify the scope and role of collaborative groups in managing Arizona rangelands, and to investigate the roles of science, local knowledge and monitoring in these efforts. The project has two components, an inventory of collaborative efforts in Arizona and a set of in-depth case studies of collaborative groups that examines how collaborative efforts help us learn about the land and each other.