Heidi Kretser
Adjunct Associate Faculty, Natural Resources and the Environment
Heidi has a day job as a Senior Conservation Social Scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Global Conservation Program. She has worked with WCS in numerous capacities for over 20 years. She serves on the WCS Institutional Review Board and the WCS Social Safeguards Management Team providing oversight on conservation projects involving or affecting Indigenous People and Local Communities and training and development for teams implementing safeguards practices in the field. Heidi is a life-long resident of the Adirondack Park, is based in Saranac Lake, NY and serves as a Board Member of the Adirondack Land Trust.
Education
BS, Cornell University, Agricultural Economics, MES Yale School of Forestry, PhD, Cornell University, Natural Resources Policy and Management
Recent Research
Heidi Kretser seeks to incorporate tools and perspectives from the social sciences into applied conservation research, planning, practice, and decision-making. Her research projects and interests vary widely yet share a common thread of understanding and working with people to improve conservation outcomes. To that end, her current projects include devising strategies for reducing the impacts of private lands development and recreation on wildlife, building constituents for conservation by creating effective communication and community-engagement based on people’s relationships and interactions with wildlife, and generating collaborative approaches for increasing community and natural resource governance capacity that achieve conservation outcomes for wildlife while safeguarding human well-being across diverse constituents.
Selected Publications
- Glennon, M.J.; Kretser, H.E. 2021. Exurbia east and west: responses of bird communities to low density residential development in two North American regions. Diversity 13:42. https://doi.org/10.3390/d13020042
- Siemer, W., T.B.Lauber, H.E. Kretser, K.L. Schuler, M. Verant, C.J. Herzog, and K.A. McComas. 2021. Predictors of intentions to conserve bats among New York property owners. Human Dimensions of Wildlife 26(3): 275-292. https://doi.org/10.1080/10871209.2020.1817628
- Kretser, H.E., E. Dale, L. Karasin, S.E. Reed, and L.J. Goldstein. 2019. Factors influencing adoption and implementation of conservation development ordinances in rural United States. Society and Natural Resources, 9:1021-1039. DOI: 10.1080/08941920.2019.1605435
- Kretser, H.K., Beckmann, J.P., and Berger, J. 2018. A retrospective assessment of a failed collaborative process in conservation. Environmental Management. 62(3):415-428. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-018-1045-2