Jill M. Belsky

My teaching and research focus on the interactions between social and ecological change in rural areas overseas and in the U.S. West, and their implications for sustainable ecosystems and community-based and collaborative natural resource management. My approach is interdisciplinary, participatory, theoretically-informed and attendant to issues relating to local livelihoods and contexts.

Recent projects involve assisting local watershed groups in Western Montana to gather information on land owners' land use and environmental governance priorities, and working toward the aquisition, ownership and management of community forests. Earlier projects involved interdisciplinary studies on shade-grown cacao and community-based rattan collection and management in Central Sulawesi (Indonesia), critical perspectives on community-based rural ecotourism and conservation in Belize; conflicts and challenges of livelihood, logging and wildlife conservation across public and private lands in Montana; and conservation farming policies and practices on sloping lands in the Philippines and Indonesia.

Ph.D., 1991 Cornell University, Rural/Development Sociology
Minors: Agriculture and Natural Resource Sociology and Southeast Asian Studies.
M.S., 1984 Cornell University, Extension Education
Minors: Rural Sociology, International Agriculture and Southeast Asian Studies.
B.A., 1978 Colgate University, Sociology and Anthropology, Graduated Cum Laude

Natural Resource/Environmental Sociology
Rural/Development Studies
Social/Community Forestry
Sustainable Agriculture
 

 2008 Jill M. Belsky. Creating Community Forests. In: Donoghue, Ellen M. and V. Sturtevant (editors). 2008. Forest Community Connections: Implications for Research, Management and Governance. Resources for the Future, Washington D.C. Chap 12, Pages 219-242.

2007.  Siebert, Stephen F. and Jill M. Belsky. Reflections on Conservation Education and Practice in Bhutan. Journal of Bhutan Studies .Vol 16, pps 83-111.

2007 Yung, Laurie and Jill M. Belsky. Private Property Rights and Community Goods: Negotiating Landowner Cooperation Amidst Changing Ownership on the Rocky Mountain Front. Society & Natural Resources 20:8: 689-703.

2005 Wilson, Seth M., Michael J. Madel, David J. Mattson, Jonathan M. Graham, James A. Burchfield, and Jill M. Belsky. Natural landscape features, human-related attractants, and conflict hotspots: a spatial analysis of human-grizzly bear conflicts. Ursus 16(1):117-129

2004. Belsky, Jill M. Contributions of qualitative research to understanding the politics of community ecotourism. In: J. Phillimore and L. Goodson (eds.) Qualitative Methods in Tourism Research. Routledge Press

2004 Belsky, J.M. Global forces in social sciences approaches to natural resource management. In: Michael J. Manfredo, Jerry J. Vaske, Donald R. Field, Perry J. Brown, Brett L. Bruyere (eds.). Society and Natural Resources: A Summary of Knowledge. Modern Litho: Jefferson City , MO

2003 Yung, L, W. Freimund and J.M. Belsky. The Politics of Place: Understanding Meaning, Common Ground, and Political Difference on the Rocky Mountain Front. Forest Science 49(6):1-12.

2003 Belsky, Jill M. and Stephen F. Siebert. Cultivating cacao: implications of sun-grown cacao on local food security and environmental sustainability. Agriculture and Human Values 20(3):277-285.  

2003 Cestero, Barb and Jill M. Belsky. Collaborating for Community and Ecological Well-Being in the Swan Valley , Montana . In Forest Communities, Community Forests . Kusel, J. (ed.). Rowman and Littlefield Pub.

2003 Belsky, Jill M. Unmasking the “Local”: Gender, Community, and the Politics of Community-Based Rural Ecotourism in Belize . In Steven R. Brechin, Pat C. West, Peter Wilshusen and Crystal Fortwangler (eds.). In Contested Nature: Power, Protected Areas and the Dispossessed – Promoting International Conservation with Justice in the 21 st Century, Albany , NY : SUNY Press.

2002 Siebert, Stephen F. and Jill M. Belsky. Livelihood security and protected area management. International Journal of Wilderness 8(3):48-42.

2001 Belsky, Jill M . Beyond the Natural Resource and Environmental Sociology Divide: Insights from a Transdisciplinary Perspective. Society & Natural Resources. 15 (3): 269-280.

2001 Johnson, N., J. Belsky, V. Benavides, M. Goebel, A. Hawkins, S. Waage. Global linkages to community-based ecosystem management in the United States . Journal of Sustainable Forestry. 12(3/4):35-63.

2000 Belsky, Jill M. Changing Human Relations with Nature: Making and Remaking Wilderness Science. In Cole, David N; McCool, Stephen F. 2000. Proceedings: Wilderness Science in a Time of Change. Proc. RMRS –P-000. Ogeden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Center.

2000 Belsky, Jill M . The Meaning of the Manatee: Community-Based Ecotourism Discourse and Practice in Gales Point , Belize . In Charles Zerner (ed.) Plants, People and Justice: Conservation and Resource Extraction in Tropical Developing Countries. Columbia University Press.

1999 Belsky, Jill M. Misrepresenting Communities: the politics of community-based rural ecotourism in Gales Point Manatee, Belize. Rural Sociology 64(4):641-666. [Reprinted in Humphrey, C, F. Buttel and T. Lewis (eds.). 2002. Environment, Energy and Society: Exemplary Works. Wadsworth Pub.]

1998 Belsky, Jill M. and Stephen F. Siebert. Nontimber Forest Products in Conservation and Community Development: Desmoncus sp. in Gales Point, Manatee, Belize, In Timber, Tourists and Temples: Conservation and Development in the Maya Forest of Belize, Guatemala and Mexico, Richard B. Primack and David Bray (eds.), Island Press. Pp.141-154.

1995 Belsky, Jill M . and Siebert, Stephen F. Managing rattan harvesting for local livelihoods and forest conservation in Kerinci-Seblat National Park , Sumatra . Selbyana 16(2): 212-222.

1994 Siebert, Stephen F. and Jill M. Belsky. Rattan Management for Sustainable Livelihoods and Forest Conservation: the Case of Kerinci-Seblat National Park , Indonesia . PARKS: The International Journal for Protected Areas Managers Vol.4, No. 3.

1994 Belsky, Jill M. Soil Conservation and Poverty: Lessons from Upland Indonesia . Society and Natural Resources Volume 7, pp. 429-443.

1993 Belsky, Jill M. Household Food Security, Farm Trees and Agroforestry: A Comparative Study in Indonesia and the Philippines . Human Organization 52(2):130-141.

1990 Siebert, S.F. and J.M. Belsky. Bench Terracing in the Kerinci Uplands of Sumatra , Indonesia . Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 45(5):559-561.

1989 Buttel, Frederick H. and J.M. Belsky. Biotechnology, Plant Breeding and Intellectual Property: Social and Ethical Dimensions In Owning Scientific and Technical Information: Values and Ethical Issues, Weil, Vivian and John W. Snapper (eds.). Rutgers University Press, 110-131 and in Science, Technology and Human Values, Volume 12, (January 1987).

1985 Siebert, S.F. and J.M. Belsky. Some socioeconomic and environmental aspects of forest use by lowland farmers in Leyte , Philippines and their implications for agricultural development and forest management. Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society 13:282-296.

1985 Siebert, S.F. and J.M. Belsky. Forest product trade in a lowland Filipino village. Economic Botany 39:522-533.

1983 Belsky, J.M. and S.F. Siebert. Household responses to drought in two subsistence Leyte villages. Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society 11: 237-256.