Biographies

Editors

Dominick A. DellaSala, PhD, is President and Chief Scientist of the Geos Institute (www.geosinstitute.org) in Ashland, Oregon; has served two terms as president of the Society for Conservation Biology, North America Section; and is Courtesy Professor at Oregon State University. He is an internationally renowned author of over 200 technical papers on forest and fire ecology, conservation biology, endangered species, and landscape ecology. He has received conservation leadership awards from the World Wildlife Fund (2000, 2004) and Wilburforce Foundation (2006), Choice Publisher’s “academic excellence” for “Temperate and Boreal Rainforests of the World: Ecology and Conservation (Island Press),” and is on the Fulbright Specialist roster as an ecologist. He has appeared on numerous nature documentaries (PBS) and national and international news syndicates, testified in support of endangered species many times in the US Congress, and has given keynote addresses at numerous conferences and international meetings, including the United Nations Earth Summit. He is motivated by his passion to leave a living planet for his daughter and all those who follow.

Chad T. Hanson, PhD, is Director and Staff Ecologist of the John Muir Project of Earth Island Institute. His PhD is in ecology from the University of California, Davis, and his research focus is on fire ecology in conifer forest ecosystems. Studies published by Dr. Hanson cover topics such as habitat selection of rare wildlife species associated with habitat created by high-severity fire; postfire conifer responses and adaptations; fire history, especially historical versus current rates of high-severity fire occurrence; and current fire patterns. Dr. Hanson lives in the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California and conducts research in conifer forests of the western United States, primarily in forests of California.

Chapter Authors

Ronald W. Abrams, PhD, CEP, is President and Principal Ecologist of Dru Associates, Inc., in Glen Cove, New York (www.dru-associates.com), an independent ecological research firm. He has served as finance officer for the Africa Section of the Society for Conservation Biology and chair of the Ecological Footprint Committee for the Society and has been an adjunct at Long Island University. He is on the Fulbright Specialist Roster in Ecological Restoration, consulting internationally in wetland management, conservation biology, and endangered species impact assessment. Dr. Abrams’ three decades of conservation consultation has been a bridge between ecological science and land use planning and development. Early in his career he served as a senior research officer at the University of Cape Town for the Southern Ocean Program, and he continues to conduct research in South Africa in the field of ecosystem services.

André Arsenault, PhD, is a forest ecologist with the Canadian Forest Service in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, and an adjunct professor in biology at Thompson Rivers University and in Environmental Science at Grenfell campus, Memorial University. His research program is focused on disturbance ecology and conservation biology and how to apply this information into planning, operations, and policy. He had the great privilege to study a wide range of forest ecosystems in British Columbia, including coastal and interior cedar-hemlock rainforests, dry forests, and high-elevation forests. André more recently expanded his program to the boreal forest of Newfoundland and Labrador. Recent accomplishments include a book on inland rainforests, a special issue of Forest Ecology and Management on forest biodiversity, and a number of manuscripts that challenge conventional wisdom on fire ecology and management of dry forests in western North America.

William L. Baker, PhD, is Emeritus Professor in the Program in Ecology and Department of Geography at the University of Wyoming, where he taught Fire Ecology and Landscape Ecology for 22 years and benefited from interactions with more than 30 energetic graduate students. His research interests are fire history and ecology in forests, shrublands, and grasslands of the western United States. He is the author of Fire Ecology in Rocky Mountain Landscapes. He has recently been studying historical vegetation using the General Land Office surveyors.

Colden V. Baxter, PhD, is Associate Professor and Director of the Stream Ecology Center, Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho. He grew up farming and ranching, principally in northwest Montana, and received his academic training in biology and geology (BA, University of Oregon), ecology (MS, University of Montana), fisheries science and philosophy of science (PhD, Oregon State University), and ecosystem studies (postdoctoral work, Colorado State University and Hokkaido University, Japan). His research program focuses on rivers and streams and more generally on the ecological linkages between water and land. Reciprocal connections such as those between streams, floodplains, and riparian forests couple land and water in their vulnerability to the agents of global environmental change, including changing fire regimes. Dr. Baxter’s work is aimed at improving our understanding of the basic nature of such connections and contributing to better-informed conservation and stewardship.

Laurence E. Berry, Bsc(Hons), is a PhD scholar of Conservation and Landscape Ecology in the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University. He is part of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions and the National Environmental Research Program Environmental Decision Hub. Mr. Berry is a member of the International Association of Wildland Fire and the Australian Ecological Society. His work uses a landscape approach to ecosystem disturbances, and he has published several articles on the ecology of fire refuges in the tall mountain ash forests of the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia. He also has worked on bird responses to fire-induced fragmentation in the semiarid Mallee woodland ecosystems of South Australia and on assessing the health of River Red Gum communities in the floodplain ecosystems of the lower Murray-Darling Basin.

Monica L. Bond, MS, is a wildlife biologist and biodiversity advocate with the Wild Nature Institute (www.wildnatureinstitute.org) who has published 15 scientific papers on the ecology of wildlife in fire-affected forests. She is a graduate of Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing, and has worked for the National Wildlife Federation and the Center for Biological Diversity, where she focused on improving management practices to conserve threatened and endangered plants and animals. Ms. Bond received the “Keeper of the Forests” award from Environment Now Foundation in 2002 in recognition of her efforts to safeguard California’s national forests. She has conducted field research on a diverse range of taxa including gray-tailed voles, Western burrowing owls, spotted owls, black-backed woodpeckers, arboreal salamanders, northern elephant seals, Hawaiian monk seals, and Masai giraffe. She resides in California but travels around the world researching and advocating for imperiled wildlife and their habitats.

Jim Furnish is currently a consulting forester in the Washington, DC, area following a 34-year career with the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service. He last served as deputy chief for national forests—9% of all lands in the United States. He also served as Siuslaw National Forest Supervisor in Corvallis, Oregon, during the spotted owl crisis, reforming management from timber production to restoration principles. Mr. Furnish was also a principle Forest Service leader in creating protections for over 23 million ha of roadless areas in 2001. He has served on the board of directors for Wildlands CPR, Evangelical Environmental Network, and Geos Institute. His memoir Toward a Natural Forest (Oregon State University Press) speaks to forest management that works in concert with nature.

Richard W. Halsey, MA, is the director of the California Chaparral Institute, a nonprofit research and educational organization focusing on the ecology of California’s chaparral ecosystem, dynamics of wildland fire, and promotion of nature education in a way that encourages communities to better connect with their surrounding natural environments. Halsey teaches natural history throughout California, works as a consultant on wildfire issues, and has published papers on chaparral ecology, fire behavior, and natural history. He taught biology for over 20 years in both public and private schools and was honored as the teacher of the year for San Diego City Schools in 1991. The second edition of his book, Fire, Chaparral, and Survival in Southern California,” was published in 2008. Halsey also has been trained as a type II wildland firefighter with the US Forest Service.

Petr Heneberg, PhD, is a biologist at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. His research interests include the impact of human-induced disturbances and other changes of a cultural landscape on species and ecosystems. Dr. Heneberg's research has focused on industrial and post-industrial sites affected by mining of aggregates or other minerals and by mining processes such as spoil heaps formation, fly ash depositing, recultivation and reclamation. Among his recent projects...