Nathan Sayre

Nathan Sayre is Professor in the Department of Geography. His interests include political economy and political ecology; environmental history; the history of rangeland science, management and administration; conservation of endangered species and biodiversity; and exurban and suburban development in the western US. He received his initiation into ranching as a student at Deep Springs College, then completed his BA at Yale and his PhD in Anthropology at the University of Chicago. He subsequently held a post-doctoral research position with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service-Jornada Experimental Range and worked as a consultant before taking his current position. Professor Sayre has worked with numerous ranchers and rancher-organized non-profit organizations, including the Malpai Borderlands Group, the Altar Valley Conservation Alliance, and the Redington Natural Resource Conservation District. He is the author of The New Ranch Handbook: A Guide to Restoring Western Rangelands (Quivira Coalition, 2001) and Ranching, Endangered Species and Urbanization in the Southwest: Species of Capital (University of Arizona Press, 2002); and Working Wilderness: the Malpai Borderlands Group and the Future of the Western Range (Rio Nuevo Press, 2005). His most recent book, Working Wilderness, is a case study of the Malpai Borderlands Group, a community-based conservation effort led by ranchers in far southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. His current research focuses on the political ecology of rangelands along the border in northwestern Mexico.