Colorado State University’s Center for Collaborative Conservation Announces Fourth Cohort of Fellows

The Center for Collaborative Conservation (CCC) at Colorado State University and the Warner College of Natural Resources awarded 14 fellowships to form the fourth cohort of CCC fellows. These fellows include eight graduate students, one faculty member and five conservation practitioners. In addition, several undergraduate CCC interns will be selected to work with the new fellows.

The core of the CCC Fellows Program is to strengthen engagement among students, faculty, conservation practitioners and other stakeholders by promoting collaborative research, education and action on critical issues concerning conservation and livelihoods on landscapes around the globe. Each fellow is asked to take their work to the next level of impact so that their research or practice has greater influence on conservation and livelihoods on the ground. CCC fellows contribute to the Collaborative Conservation Learning Network where principles and practice of collaborative conservation are developed, exchanged, tested and adopted.

This fourth cohort of CCC fellows will be working in six countries including Canada, Ethiopia, Haiti, Mongolia, Philippines and the United States. The cohort also will work with two tribal nations, the Lakota in Pine Ridge, N.D., and the Dineh/Navajo in Black Mesa, Ariz. Of the eight fellows who will be working in the United States, five will be working in Colorado, one in Arizona, one in Montana and one in North Dakota. The fellows also represent five departments and two colleges at Colorado State, two NGOs doing conservation work in Colorado, a government agency and two tribal nations.

Following is the fourth cohort of CCC fellows.

Practitioner Fellows
Sebastian Africano is with Trees, Water & People and is collaborating with CSU’s College of Business’ Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise program MBA students; John McGreevy, Department of Anthropology; Eugene Kelly, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences; and Bryan Wilson, Engines and Energy Conservation Laboratory.

Marie Gladue is with Dineh/Navajo-Black Mesa, Ariz. and collaborating with Robin Reid, Kim Skyelander and Lee Scharf from the Center for Collaborative Conservation.

Emily Kachergis is with USDA-Agricultural Research Service and collaborating with Maria Fernandez-Gimenez and Jacey Cerda from the Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship.

Kim Langmaid is with National Forest Foundation and collaborating with Tony Cheng from the Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship.

Richard Sherman is with Oglala Sioux Parks & Recreation Authority and collaborating with Michael Brydge and Kathleen Sherman from the Department of Anthropology.

Faculty Fellow
Khishigbayar Jamiyansharav is a faculty member in CSU’s Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship.

Graduate Student Fellows
Jacey Cerda is in the Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship and advised by Maria Fernandez-Gimenez.

Erica Goad is in the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology and Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology. She is advised by Liba Pejchar and Rick Knight.

Theresa Jedd is in the Department of Political Science and advised by Michele Betsill.

David Knight is in the Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources and advised by Stuart Cottrell.

Matt Luizza is in the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology and advised by Michele Betsill and Paul Evangelista.

John McGreevy is in the Department of Anthropology and advised by Kate Brown.

Kristen Pelz is in the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology and Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship. She is advised by Skip Smith.

Tungalag Ulambayar is in the Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship and advised by Maria Fernandez-Gimenez.

Project Highlights
The fellows’ projects include a strong focus on forests in Haiti, the United States and Canada. Sebastian Africano’s fellowship will create Forest Replacement Associations in Haiti to reduce charcoal use and regenerate forests. He will work closely with John McGreevy to promote collaboration and cultural understanding of these reforestation efforts among participating Haitian communities.

Kimberly Langmaid will work in a Colorado forest to complete a collaborative visioning and planning process for the future management of the Eagle River Headwaters area of the White River National Forest. Kristen Pelz will work to develop robust methods for evaluating Collaborative Landscape Forest Restoration projects throughout Colorado. Theresa Jedd will work in Montana, British Columbia and Alberta with the Crown of the Continent initiative to understand how collaborative forest conservation works at the international level and how to strengthen this large-scale experiment in networked governance.

Two other projects focus on building community around natural resources with the Lakota and Dineh Nations. Richard Sherman will assure the generational momentum of the Indigenous Stewardship Model and community development on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation by working with tribal and non-tribal entities, Lakota elders and Lakota youth to strengthen both human and natural communities through enhancing natural resource stewardship. Marie Gladue will work with Dineh communities that have been impacted by coal mining at Black Mesa, Ariz. by building a traditional Hogan. She will also complete a thesis on reclaiming sustainable knowledge of a sacred homescape and by establishing a sheepherding association.

Several projects focus on ranchers in rangelands. Emily Kachergis will initiate a collaborative and adaptive decision-making process to manage the rangelands at the 15,500-acre USDA Agricultural Research Service Central Plains Experimental Range in Nunn, Colo. Jacey Cerda will evaluate ranching partnerships in the San Luis Valley to understand how social and institutional constraints affect ranchers’ and agency professionals’ decisions to adopt innovative rangeland management techniques.

In Mongolia, Tungalag Ulambayar will work on a national radio program on the performance of community-based rangeland management institutions. Also in Mongolia, Khishigbayar Jamiyansharav will partner with local teachers and village officials in writing and archiving their own stories and local knowledge about rangeland conditions and how they adapt to economic, political and climate change.

Erica Goad will work with “exurban” landowners to understand how land development affects wildlife habitat use and movement patterns by using remotely-triggered cameras and track analysis and presenting the results through an art exhibit of photographs and short narratives by landowners. David Knight will work on Cebu Island, Philippines, to develop an experiential learning program for local teachers, providing them with local knowledge of current reef management and collaborative conservation practices. Matt Luizza’s fellowship will focus on the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia, to integrate traditional ecological knowledge of the Oromo people with scientific knowledge about wildlife, medicinal plants, honey production and other ecosystem services to promote adaptive collaborative stewardship of those resources.

For more information on the CCC’s fourth cohort of Collaborative Conservation Fellows and the Fellowship Program in general, visit www.collaborativeconservation.org.

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