Reimagining Forestry and Fire Career Pathways for Justice-Impacted People in the Bay Area, California

This project brought together an interdisciplinary team of students, faculty advisors, and community partners to reimagine a workforce-led and community-centered transition to living and working with fire in California’s landscape. The project considered how the Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program (FFRP), and similar workforce development programs across the American West, can better serve justice-involved and systems-impacted people while meeting growing demands on the forestry and fire workforce. By facilitating visioning and listening sessions with FFRP’s Career Training Program cohorts, the project identified concrete entry points for future-ready forestry and fire policy and programs to expand engagement and partnerships with justice-involved and systems-impacted people in the San Francisco-Bay area, and beyond. The project will build on and contribute to ongoing initiatives of the Underground Scholars Research Cohort and the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Learn more about the project’s outcomes here.

Meet the team:

A research cohort page with the title 'Student Partners,' showing photographs and contact information of four individuals, including Eli Martinez, James Carlin, Elizabeth Brown, and Martin Lara.
A digital graphic design of a professional contact sheet with four people, each with their name, focus area, contact info, and a photo. The focus areas include Forestry/Fire & WUI, Social Work, and Environmental Justice.
Image of two faculty advisors with their names, titles, email addresses, and photos. On the left, David J. Harding, professor of sociology at UC Berkeley, and on the right, Heidi Huber-Stearns, visiting professor at University of Michigan.
A digital document displaying contact information and photos of two community advisors, Katie Low and Rachelle Hedges, with their titles, emails, Twitter handles, and a LinkedIn link.
Contact information and photos of three individuals involved in the Community Partner: The Forestry and Fire Recruitment Program, including Brandon Smith, Cari Pang Chen, and Jordan Inzunza, with the program's logo featuring a fire and trees.