Southern California is a remarkably diverse landscape and contains a lot of wilderness that Bryant Baker talks about in this fascinating interview. Bryant is Conservation Director for Los Padres Forest Watch. Bryant is an experienced GIS specialist, photographer, naturalist, and fire/land management policy expert who spends countless hours in the field exploring the natural environment. Since earning his Master’s degree in Environmental Soil & Water Science, he has offered his expertise on water quality, fire ecology, and land management policies to community groups and government agencies. He has also conducted dozens of expert evaluations of damaging projects on national forest land undergoing National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) review. As a naturalist and photographer, Bryant spends most of his free time hiking the rugged public lands of the Central Coast region with his dog, Leela.

As the Conservation Director, Bryant analyzes technical documents, writes comments on projects undergoing environmental review, pens articles in local news publications, monitors the latest scientific literature on ecology and land management, develops and coordinates volunteer field projects, and gives community presentations on topics such as wildfire mitigation.