Overview
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.
Current Appointments & Affiliations
Recent Publications
Biodiversity targets will not be met without debt and tax justice.
Journal Article Nature ecology & evolution · March 2022 Full text Open Access CiteSynergies and trade-offs among integrated conservation approaches in Mexico.
Journal Article Conservation biology. · October 2021 Integrated conservation approaches (ICAs) are employed by governments, communities, and nongovernmental organizations worldwide seeking to achieve outcomes with dual benefits for biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation. Although ICAs are frequent ... Full text Open Access CitePraxis in Resource Geography: Tensions between Engagement and Critique in the (Un)Making of Ecosystem Services
Chapter · 2021 Navigating the complications and contradictions that often arise when critical scholars engage with the “subjects” of their research in ways meant to support social change is a messy business. This chapter explores the tensions involved in this mixing of t ... Full text Open Access Link to item CiteRecent Grants
Collaborative Research: Spillovers in Incentive-Based Conservation Programs
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2011 - 2015View All Grants