Shasta Ferranto

PhD Candidate

Education

• M.S. Geography, University of Nevada, Reno, 2006
• B.A. Nature and Culture, University of California, Davis, 2002

Research Interests

Landscape Ecology, Conservation Planning, Collaborative Resource Management, Adaptive Management

Research Description

I am an interdisciplinary environmental scientist, interested in collaborative natural resource management. My research bridges geography, landscape ecology, and land use planning to address complex natural resource management issues in California. Many of the environmental issues we face today cross jurisdictional boundaries, often requiring cooperation between private landowners, land management agencies, and various stakeholder organizations. Addressing these issues requires the integration of ecological knowledge and social values, always within the constraints of a legal and political framework. My research is applied in nature and focuses on the human dimensions of landscape scale natural resource management in California.

I have worked on several projects that focus on cross-jurisdictional and/or multi-stakeholder resource management in California. These include:

• The Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project, a multi-disciplinary project focused on wildfire fuel reduction treatments in Sierran national forests.
• A survey of private forest and rangeland landowners in California to improve understanding of landowner values, management practices, and support for cross-boundary land management.
• A conservation plan for deer migration corridors in the eastern Sierra Nevada to identify migratory bottlenecks and hotspots for deer-vehicle collisions.
• A volunteer citizen science project to monitor water quality in the Lake Tahoe Basin.

Selected Publications

Ferranto, S., L. Huntsinger, W. Stewart, C. Getz, G. Nakamura, and M. Kelly. 2012. Consider the source: the impact of media and authority in outreach to forest and rangeland owners.  Journal of Environmental Management 97(1): 131 -140.

Ferranto, S., L. Huntsinger, C. Getz, G. Nakamura,  W. Stewart, S. Drill, Y. Valachovic, M. De Lasaux, and M. Kelly. 2011. Forest and rangeland owners value land for natural amenities, and as financial investment. California Agriculture 65(4): 184 – 191.

Recent Teaching

C11 - Americans and the Global Forest