Breadcrumb
Jeff Martin
Lecturer
Dr. Martin is an interdisciplinary environmental social scientist whose work speaks to the human dimensions of environmental challenges. Their research -- including a decade of work on wolf-livestock conflict and coexistence in the American West -- addresses ongoing debates over conservation in working landscapes via a political ecology and more-than-human geographical perspective. They currently serve as a research social scientist with the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station.
Research Focus
My research responds to calls for social science attention to environmental questions, speaking to ongoing debates over conservation in working landscapes through a political ecology and more-than-human geographical perspective. This work stresses cross-disciplinary communication and translation, emphasizing the application of critical social science insights to environmental conflict and governance – including collaborations with management agencies and local communities – as well as questions of normative possibility: of diverse values, storytelling, and alternative futures.
Much of my work is concerned with how communities navigate the challenges of coexistence in shared landscapes, between different social groups and with sometimes troublesome nonhuman natures. This has included work on human-wildlife conflict and coexistence, with particular focus during my PhD and postdoc on wolf-livestock issues across the American West. More recently, I turned from wildlife to wildfire, serving as project lead on a state-wide survey of California cannabis farms with UC Berkeley’s Cannabis Research Center, assessing fire and smoke impacts on outdoor producers contending with dynamic environments and shifting economies.
With the U.S. Forest Service, I serve as co-lead on multiple projects concerned with wildfire management and community impacts, including questions of local economies and capacities, social acceptance in the wildland-urban interface, and the role and effectiveness of environmental collaboratives. Another strand of my research focuses on the relationship between Tribes and the federal government, including questions of co-stewardship of lands and resources, indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing, and data sovereignty – in turn drawing on previous writings on capitalist political economy and settler colonialism in the American West. These themes overlap around the challenges of bringing fire back to California landscapes through prescribed and cultural burning.
My analyses draw heavily from the ‘big tent’ of political ecology, as well as environmental history and critical physical geography, emphasizing the idea that environmental challenges are always and simultaneously social and political. Around questions of wildfire, I invoke the argument that “there’s no such thing as a natural disaster”: as much as fire is a force that exceeds human intention and control, it is bound up with histories of human land use and climate change – including legacies of fire suppression – and is experienced by unevenly vulnerable and differentially situated social actors (raising questions of environmental in/justice). Contending with these complex socio-environmental challenges, I argue in my work, requires a deep attentiveness to their ‘human dimensions,’ representing a key gap and an opportunity for critical social science.
- PhD in Geography, University of California, Berkeley. 2020
- MSc in Environmental Governance, University of Manchester. 2011
- BA in Peace and Conflict Studies, University of California, Berkeley. 2008
- WLDF 485 - Senior Seminar
In press Bratman, E., A. Jadhav, J. V. Martin, J. Henderson, R. Lipschutz. “The global environmental politics of resistance, revisited.” Global Environmental Politics.
2025 Crandall, M. S., L. Resener, S. Charnley, J. V. Martin, J. Mycek. “Shifting Industrial Geographies of Timber Production and Processing in the Pacific Northwest.” Forest Policy and Economics. 181: 103588. doi: 10.1016/j.forpol.2025.103588.
2025 Smith, A., J. V. Martin, T. Kuwait, R. Anderson, K. Epstein, S. Charnley, H. Gosnell. “Cowboying for Coexistence? Range riding in the New West.” Frontiers in Conservation Science. 6: 1648815. doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2025.1648815.
2025 van Eeden, L., J. V. Martin, J. Fisk, L. Lehnen, E. C. Ellis, M. C. Gavin, A. C. Landon, L. R. Larson, K. M. Leong, W. Linklater, C. R. Williams, R. E. W. Berl.“The native-exotic dichotomy as a cultural paradigm in conservation.” Biological Conservation. 311: 111415. doi: 10.1016/j.biocon.2025.111415.
2025 Martin, J. V., R. M. Anderson, K. Epstein, S. Charnley. Managing wolf-livestock conflict on national forests in the Western United States. General Technical Report. PNW-GTR-1029. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 153 p. doi: 10.2737/pnw-gtr-1029.
2025 Martin, J. V., C. Dillis, G. Starrs, D. Schell, T. E. Grantham, V. Butsic. “Wildfire impacts and mitigation strategies among California cannabis producers.” PLoS ONE. 20(4): e0321476. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0321476.
2025 Merz, L., N. T. Bergmann, C. Brown, J. V. Martin, C. Wardropper, J. Bruskotter, N. Carter. “State-level variation drives wolf management in the northwestern United States.” Environmental Research: Ecology. 4(1): 015008. doi: 10.1088/2752-664X/adafad.
2024 Anderson, R. M., S. Charnley, J. V. Martin, K. Epstein. “Large, rugged, and remote: The challenge of wolf-livestock coexistence on federal lands in the American West.” People and Nature. doi: 10.1002/pan3.10713.
2024 Martin, J. V. “Conservation and conviviality in the American West.” Elementa. 12(1): 00073. doi: 10.1525/elementa.2023.00073.
2023 Dillis, C., V. Butsic, J. V. Martin, A. Reiman, G. Starrs, T. E. Grantham. “Wildfire smoke exposure has significant economic impacts on California’s licensed cannabis industry.” Environmental Research Letters. 18: 094069. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/acef3e.
2023 Anderson, R., S. Charnley, K. Epstein, K. M. Gaynor, J. V. Martin, A. McInturff. “The socioecology of fear: a critical geographical consideration of human-wolf-livestock conflict.” The Canadian Geographer. 67(1): 17-34. doi: 10.1111/cag.12808.
2021 Martin, J. V., K. Epstein, R. Anderson, S. Charnley. “Coexistence praxis: the role of resource managers in wolf-livestock interactions on federal lands.” Frontiers in Conservation Science. 2: 56. doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2021.707068.
2021 Martin, J. V. “Between Scylla and Charybdis: Environmental Governance and Illegibility in the American West.” Geoforum. 123: 194-204. doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.08.015.
2021 Martin, J. V. “Peace in the Valley? Qualitative Insights on Collaborative Coexistence from the Wood River Wolf Project.” Conservation Science and Practice. 3(3): e197. doi: 10.1111/csp2.197.
2020 Wilkinson, C., A. McInturff, J. R. B. Miller, V. Yovovich, K. M. Gaynor, K. Calhoun, H. Karandikar, J. V. Martin, P. Parker‐Shames, A. Shawler, A. Van Scoyoc, J. S. Brashares. “An Ecological Framework for Contextualizing Carnivore-Livestock Conflict.” Conservation Biology. 34(4): 854-867. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13469.
2019 Wesner, A., S. S. Moore, J. V. Martin, G. Kirk, L. Dev, I. Behrsin. “Left Coast Political Ecology: A Manifesto.” Journal of Political Ecology. 26(1): 529-544. doi: 10.2458/jpe.v26i1.
Other publications
In press Roadmap for Improved Engagement with Tribal Peoples, USDA Forest Service Research & Development (link)
2025 Martin, J. “Phases of the Moon: A Cultural History of the Werewolf Film, Craig Ian Mann.” Revenant. 12. 213-216. https://www.revenantjournal.com/contents/1452.
2022 Polson, M., V. Butsic, C. Dillis, H. de Genova, T. Grantham, L. Rosel Herrera, J. Hossack, A. Laudati, J. V. Martin, P. Parker-Shames, M. Petersen-Rockney, J. Sorgen, G. Starrs. “Policy Findings & Recommendations Regarding California Cannabis: Farming, Regulation and the Environment.” UC Berkeley Cannabis Research Center. crc.berkeley.edu/publication/policy-findings-recommendations-regarding-california-cannabis-farming-regulation-and-the-environment/.
2020 Martin, J. V. and G. Sneegas. “Critical Worldbuilding: Toward a Geographical Engagement with Imagined Worlds.” Literary Geographies. 6(1): 15-23. literarygeographies.net/index.php/LitGeogs/article/view/239.
2019 Martin, J. V., K. Epstein, N. Bergmann, A. C. Kroepsch, H. Gosnell, and P. Robbins. “Revisiting and Revitalizing Political Ecology in the American West.” Geoforum. 107: 227-230. doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.05.006.
2013 Martin, J. V. “Desmercantilización de la Biodiversidad.” Ecología Política. 46: 58-62. jstor.org/stable/43526885.
Invited talks
2025 “While the world burns: Reflections on conservation and conviviality from a federal government scientist,” American Museum of Natural History, Science Seminar
2025 “Rewilding and its discontents: conservation and critical social science,” University of Oregon, Environmental Studies and Geography departments
2025 “In the shadow of the wolf: Conflict and conservation in the New West,” Cal Poly Humboldt, Environmental Studies department
2025 “Toward convivial conservation,” Cal Poly Humboldt, Topics in Nature/Culture (guest lecture)
2021 “The wolf question: Conflict and coexistence,” University of San Francisco, Environment and Society (guest lecture, virtual)
2021 “The wolf question: Conflict and coexistence,” University of Colorado, Denver, Sustainability and Resource Management (guest lecture, virtual)
2020 “Worldbuilding and storytelling,” University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Wildlife and Society (guest lecture, virtual)
2020 “Wolf restoration politics and qualitative social science research,” Western Colorado University, Environmental Politics and Policy (guest lecture, virtual)
Campus talks
2025 “Cowboying for Coexistence? Range Riding in the New West” (virtual), USDA Forest Service R&D Pacific West Science Program
2019 “Humanities and arts perspectives on environmental issues” (panelist), Environmental Issues, UC Berkeley
2018 “Rewilding is a political project: Wolf-livestock coexistence in the New West,” Humanities and Social Sciences Grad Slam Competition, UC Berkeley
2019 “Animal geographies: Why look at animals?” (guest lecture), World Peoples and Cultural Environments, UC Berkeley
2018 “Why look at animals?” (guest lecture), World Peoples and Cultural Environments, UC Berkeley
2018 “Narrative in games: role/roll-playing” (guest lecture/game master), Speculative World-Building: Games and Simulation, UC Berkeley
2013 “The commodification of nature and its discontents” (guest lecture), Food and the Environment, UC Berkeley
Conference presentations
2024 “Contested non/belonging in the West: Wolves, elk, ranchers, and the state,” Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting – Honolulu, Hawaii (virtual)
2024 “Tribal co-stewardship in practice: Lessons learned and ongoing challenges,” Society for Applied Anthropology – Santa Fe, New Mexico
2024 “From outlaws to co-inhabitants: Getting (back) to more-than-human community,” Dimensions of Political Ecology – Lexington, Kentucky (virtual)
2023 “Setting the stage: Wolves, livestock, and conflict management on U.S. Forest Service lands” (presenter and moderator), Society for Range Management – Boise, Idaho
2022 “Conservation, commoning, and conviviality in the American West,” Pathways: Human Dimensions of Wildlife – Bremerton, Washington (virtual)
2020 “The good, the bad, and the ugly: Tragedy and commoning in the American West,” Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting – Denver, Colorado (virtual)
2020 “Politicizing wildlife management’ (discussant), Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting – Denver, Colorado (virtual)
2019 “Rewilding and its discontents: Gray wolves, western lands, and the remaking of place (or: a political ecology of the wolf question),” Nordic Geographers Meeting – Trondheim, Norway
2018 “Worldbuilding and storytelling: Between ethnography and speculative fictions,” Earth-Writing Symposium – Berkeley, California (link)
2018 “Rewilding and its discontents: Gray wolves, public lands, and the New West,”
(Un)Common Worlds Human-Animal Studies Conference – Turku, Finland
2018 “Intentional illegibility in western range management: (Weapons of) the weak state,” American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting – New Orleans, Louisiana
2018 “Political ecology of the American West: A new generation” (panelist), American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting – New Orleans, Louisiana
2017 “In the shadow of the wolf: human-wildlife conflict and land use politics in the New West,” American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting – Boston, Massachusetts
2017 “Geographies of the conservative other” (panelist), American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting – Boston, Massachusetts
2015 “Conflict and cohabitation: Gray Wolves, livestock production, and land use change in the Northern Rockies,” International Conference of Historical Geographers – London, United Kingdom
2014 “Wolves and political economy,” Animal//Environment Symposium – Stanford, California
2012 “Re-governing biodiversity: The conditions of production and Kew Gardens’ Millennium Seed Bank,” American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting – New York, New York