Laura is a Conservation Connect Fellow at the National Forest Foundation (NFF) and a U.S. Media and Storytelling Intern at the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y). Based in Missoula, MT, she is coordinating and facilitating forest collaboratives in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge and Idaho Panhandle National Forests with NFF. Her work involves facilitating conversations among collaborative members and other stakeholders, liaising with the Forest Service, organizing field trips to project sites, drafting reports and public commentary letters, providing outreach to diversify collaborative membership and increase public engagement, and leveraging partnerships and resources to advance landscape-scale restoration. With Y2Y, Laura is working with the U.S. team to tell the story of their private lands work in the Northern Rockies. Through written and visual media, she hopes to emphasize the importance of grizzly bear habitat connectivity and conflict prevention, and the key role that private land conservation and Y2Y priority areas play in establishing wildlife corridors. Laura’s contributions will support collaborative landscape management and restoration, habitat connectivity, human-wildlife coexistence, and a balance of conservation and rural development in the Rocky Mountains.
COLLABORATOR
Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative
STUDENT RESEARCHER
Laura González Mantecón, Research Assistant| Laura González Mantecón is a Master of Environmental Management candidate at the Yale School of the Environment. She is interested in the intersection of ecosystem conservation and rural development and in the incorporation of traditional knowledge and community-led planning into management practices as part of the broader goal of addressing climate change and environmental inequities. Before coming to YSE, Laura worked in outdoor and international education, and she became enamored by the Western landscapes while living and skiing in the Canadian Rockies. See what Laura has been up to. | Blog