Elizabeth Shapiro - Garza, Associate Professor of the Practice of Environmental Policy and Management in the Division of Environmental Science and Policy

Please note: Elizabeth has left the "Center for Latin American Caribbean Studies" group at Duke University; some info here might not be up to date.

Elizabeth Shapiro-Garza is an Associate Professor of the Practice of Environmental Policy and Management at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. She serves as the Faculty Director for Engaged Scholarship for Duke University, the Director for Community Engagement for the Duke University Superfund Research Center and the Director of the graduate Certificate in Community-Based Environmental Management. 

Shapiro-Garza is Human-Environment Geographer whose research explores the ways in which human communities interact with environmental initiatives and approaches meant to influence their management practices and behaviors and the role that broader economic, political or policy trends, as well as inequality in access to power and resources, play in those dynamics and outcomes. She is a broadly trained social scientist with a primary methodological specialization in qualitative methods and analysis. Depending on the questions raised, she collaborates with economists, ecologists, remote sensing specialists, and environmental and public health researchers. Applying the framing and methods from these multiple disciplines, she conducts research on the following topics:

• Market-Based Environmental Policies and Programs
• Payments for Ecosystem Services in Mexico                                                                       
• Climate Change Mitigation through Forest-Based Carbon Offsetting in Peru and Mexico
• Climate Change Adaptation by Smallholder Coffee Producers in Latin America
• Environmental Health and Justice in North Carolina

In exploring these topics, she has partnered with agricultural cooperatives, indigenous communities, government agencies and community-based non-profits in Mexico, El Salvador, Peru, Colombia, Guatemala and the southeastern United States. Her research is published in highly ranked, peer-reviewed journals in geography and in the fields of her collaborators, as well as in fora and formats relevant to the policy makers, practitioners and the communities with whom she partners. The most substantive funders of this scholarship are the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada, the Tinker Foundation, and the International Institute for Impact Evaluation (3ie) Foundation.

Contact Info:

Office Location:	Box 90328, 4103 Environment Hall, Durham, NC 27708
Office Phone:	(919) 681-7781
Email Address:
Web Pages:	https://latinamericancaribbean.duke.edu/people?dws_affiliation_ref_tid=2&page=4 http://sites.nicholas.duke.edu/communitycertificate/

Teaching (Spring 2024):

• ENVIRON 795.02, PRACTICUM IN COMMUNITY ENGAGEM Synopsis

  LSRC A158, W 04:40 PM-07:25 PM

• ENVIRON 898.10, PROGRAM AREA SEMINAR Synopsis

  LSRC A156, Tu 04:40 PM-05:55 PM

Education:

Ph.D.	University of California - Berkeley	2010
MESc, Human Ecology	Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies	2010
BA, Biology and Environmental Studies	Oberlin College

Specialties:

environmental sociology & anthropology
environmental policy
forest management and silviculture
global climate change
environmental values
justice

Keywords:

Adaptive natural resource management • Agroforestry • Climate Change • Climate change mitigation • Climatic changes--Risk management • Coffee • Coffee growers • Coffee plantations • Commons • Community development • Community organization • Community-based conservation • Community-Based Participatory Research • Conservation of Natural Resources • Conservation projects (Natural resources) • Critical theory • Discourse analysis • Economic geography • Ecosystem services • Ecosystem services--Law and legislation • Environmental Policy • Forest conservation • Forest resilience--Climatic factors • Forests and forestry--Climatic factors • Geography • Geography projects • Human geography • International Development • Land tenure • Latin America • Mexico • Mixed methods research • Natural resources • Natural resources management areas • Natural resources, Communal • Natural resources--Management • Natural resources--Mexico • Payments for ecosystem services • Political ecology • Qualitative Research • Resilience (Ecology) • Service learning • Vegetation and climate • Water Resources

Curriculum Vitae

Representative Publications   (More Publications)

1. Shapiro-Garza, E., Contesting the market-based nature of the Mexico's national payments for ecosystem services programs: Four sites of articulation and hybridization, Geoforum, vol. 46 (2013), pp. 5-15 [PDF] [abs]
2. Shapiro, E.N. & P. Fadem, Forests, in In J. Conant and P. Fadem (ed.), A Community Guide to Environmental Health, Hesperian Foundation, Berkeley, CA, p. 175-198 (2008) [PDF]
3. Shapiro, E.N., Arboles de Usos Múltiples en El Salvador: Un Manual para Propagación y Reforestación [Multiple Use Trees of El Salvador: A Guide for Propagation and Reforestation], in USAID & Peace Corps. San Salvador, El Salvador (92 pgs.) (1998)
4. Shapiro-Garza, E, Contesting market-based conservation: Payments for ecosystem services as a surface of engagement for rural social movements in Mexico, Human Geography: a New Radical Journal, vol. 6 no. 1 (2013), pp. 134-150 [repository]  [abs]
5. Conant, J. & E.N. Shapiro, Restoring land and planting trees, in In J. Conant and P. Fadem (ed.), A Community Guide to Environmental Health, Hesperian Foundation, Berkeley, CA. p. 279-318 (2008) [PDF]
6. Shapiro - Garza, E; Tran, B, Acciones Ambientales para el Mejoramiento del Medio Ambiente en las Comunidades Rurales [Environmental Actions for Improving the Environment of Rural Communities] (1998), pp. 1-240, United States Peace Corps, Fondo Inciativa para las Americas de El Salvador, Research Triangle Institute and GreenCom  [abs]
7. Alix-Garcia, J., E.N. Shapiro, K.R.E. Sims, Forest conservation and slippage: Evidence from Mexico’s national payments for ecosystem services program, Land Economics, vol. 88 no. 4 (2012), pp. 613-638 [PDF] [abs]
8. Shapiro, E.N., Interview: Jesús León Santos, Integral Peasant Development Center of the Mixteca (CEDICAM), Mexico, in Eds. A. Cohn, et al., Agroecology and the Struggle for Food Sovereignty in the Americas. International Institute for Environment and Development, London, Great Britain, p. 160-163 (2006)
9. McAfee, K. & E.N. Shapiro, Payment for ecosystem services in Mexico: Nature, neoliberalism, social movements and the state, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 100 (3), p. 579-599 (2010) [PDF]
10. Méndez, V. E., E.N. Shapiro & G.S. Gilbert, Cooperative management and its effects on shade tree diversity, soil properties and ecosystem services of coffee plantations in western El Salvador. Special Issue on Agroforestry for Ecosystem Services and Environmental Benefits, Agroforestry Systems, 76, 111-126 (2009) [PDF]
11. Connelly, A. & E.N. Shapiro, Agricultural expansion by smallholders as a threat to the ecological integrity of La Amistad Biosphere Reserve: Perceived vs. real impacts of cacao and cattle, Journal of Sustainable Forestry, V. 22 (1/2), 115-141 (2006) [PDF]