Zia Brucaya, Conservation Solutions Coordinator, has a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she focused on Sustainable Land Use and Development. Her previous work includes a planning internship with the City of Rochester, New York, and a policy internship with the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute in Madison, Wisconsin. Zia began working with with SCS in the summer of 2010 as the Federal Transition Policy Intern. She transitioned to the Conservation Solutions Coordinator in the fall of 2010. This position expands on her previous intern work, which focused on supporting a sustainable path forward for Tongass management that benefits Sitkans and visitors alike. In addition to ensuring that the Tongass’s rich spectrum of resources is recognized and enhanced, Zia is helping to reduce community-Forest Service conflict over Tongass management by integrating community input from the outset.
“Working on environmental issues in a place as incredibly inspiring as Alaska?—It couldn’t get any better,” she says.
Recent posts by Zia:
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Stewardship Contracting: The Right Tool for the Tongass?
Stewardship contracting, unlike conventional U.S. Forest Service contracting tools, offers a creative way to incentivize restoration by paying contractors in full or part with the value of the restoration “byproducts” that are extracted during a project. It also allows the agency to award contracts based on overall best value to the government and local communities [...]
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Reviving Forest Diversity and Rural Economies
Protecting ecosystem diversity and finding sustainable ways to use the resources around us are two things that SCS cares deeply about, which is why this recent story on PRX - Food and Forests: Reviving Diversity - caught our eye. It chronicles a pretty inspiring model, based on the work of The Watershed Center in Hayfork, California, for [...]
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Ocean Boulevard Wildlife Improvement
BACKGROUND: Clear-cut logging of the forests near False Island between 1967 and 1972 led to fast-paced, even-aged growth of new conifers, shrubs and herbaceous plants that is today causing serious problems for deer and other wildlife. After about 25 years of growth in a previously clear-cut area, conifers become so thick that understory shrubs and [...]
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The Peril Strait Landscape Opportunities Project
BACKGROUND: The Peril Project is a collaborative stewardship initiative designed to improve wildlife habitat and recreational access within the False Island/Peril Strait landscape. Planning for Peril officially began in 2010, but the “landscape-scale” project concept is rooted in three efforts that began as far back as 2006: the U.S. Forest Service False Island Integrated Resource [...]
