A Conversation with Mari Galloway on Overcoming Boundaries in California

Over the last few centuries, California’s borders and jurisdictional divisions have become ever more prominent in the minds of the public and decision-makers. Despite these divisions, Mari Galloway, our California Program Director, retains a landscape-level perspective as she leads big-picture reconnection for wildlife well beyond California’s borders.

With a law degree and a genuine desire for partnership, Mari has already made a significant impact on driving successful conservation victories for wildlife in and around California. Wildlands Network has led the passage of wildlife legislation, spearheaded new projects for land restoration after wildfire, and incentivized new wildlife crossing projects, all using one common skill set: the ability to overcome boundaries.

How does she do it? We asked her to find out!

Why are you passionate about restoring, reconnecting and rewilding North America?

Our planet has lost over two thirds of its wildlife in the last fifty years. I am only thirty years old, but the changes in the Sierra Nevada forests, conversion of my hometown’s vineyards to suburban sprawl, and absence of squashed bugs on the car windshield is noticeable.

I am passionate about rewilding North America because I want to change the course of our centuries-long history of wreaking havoc on our planet. I want to live in a wild world – where people are awed by and connected to the complexity of our ecosystems.

What types of viewpoints and perspectives do you bring to your work at Wildlands Network?  

I believe that no problem is unsolvable with strong collaboration and trusting relationships. Working with a wide variety of partners provides an opportunity to pool expertise, capacity, and knowledge to advance a common goal with ripple effects that go far beyond what one person could achieve. Building collaborations requires considerable time and energy, but it is critical to understand an issue from numerous perspectives and create community with the people who help make this work possible.  

I believe people do their finest while they are having a good time and do my best to create a bright environment that makes room for laughter, creative ideas, and genuine self-expression. 

What does “California” mean to you from a landscape perspective?  

I have spent most my life in California and have lived in the Central Valley, the Sierra Nevada, the Pacific Northwest, and San Diego’s coast. To me, “California” is exceptional biodiversity, a full spectrum of ecosystems, a drastically altered hydrology, a large human population, and a state taking bold, progressive action, which — in my opinion — make California the ultimate landscape to reconnect.  

Connecting California’s landscapes means protecting seasonal migration corridors for deer between the Sierra Nevada and the Great Basin, creating safe passage for California newts between upland habitats to lakes and ponds, and allowing mountain lions to safely travel hundreds of miles through desert, mountains, valleys, and coasts to find a mate.  

With your work in wildlife connectivity, how do you conceptualize state borders and boundaries? How has this perception evolved over time? 

It depends. With policy, it’s difficult because the geographic span of certain funding, regulations, or protections, are limited by jurisdiction. I’m grateful to work at an organization that spans the continent because it allows us to work throughout many jurisdictions to provide pathways for wildlife, even across political boundaries.  

In contrast, with on-the-ground projects, political boundaries just mean more partners. If the wildlife we are seeking to help move across a county, state, or national boundary — which they tend to do — we have to widen our collaboration to include partners from those jurisdictions. 

What has your experience working across states in both California and Nevada been like on Highway 395?  

Working on U.S. 395 has opened my eyes to how a handful of champions in government agencies, Tribes, and local communities can make a monumental difference. I’m grateful to be working with so many of these champions on U.S. 395, who consistently contribute data, insights, and more, to help connect landscapes for wildlife to roam. This effort has allowed us to expand our road ecology on U.S. 395 into Nevada, launch post-fire remediation projects, and strategize private land conservation opportunities. 

What challenges have you faced in the process? What has made the projects successful? 

One of the biggest challenges in implementing landscape-scale connectivity is the general lack of communication and coordination between government, nonprofit, and academic agencies. In addition, though many of our government agencies face funding challenges, gaps in funding and capacity are more severe in rural areas, heightening challenges to identify grant applicants, conduct studies, and partner with other organizations. Despite these challenges, our projects’ success stems from the ability to balance coordination among a wide array of partners to identify effective solutions and creatively adapt plans to advance projects and policies.  

How do you envision Wildlands Network shaping California’s conservation landscape in the future? 

Wildlife connectivity is not only the art and science of connecting landscapes, but also of connecting people. It is amazing to see what happens when you bring a group of people together who have studied, conserved, and lived on the same landscape for decades and never met.  

I envision Wildlands Network shaping California’s conservation landscape through establishing channels of communication so that academic institutions, government agencies, planners and decision-makers, and nonprofit organizations are proactively working together to connect landscapes. Sharing information and collaborating to implement a joint vision of connected landscapes across California will ensure the whole of individual efforts to rewild California is greater than its parts.  

Is there any other information you'd like to share?   

Yes! I’d love to share a book recommendation: “The Ministry for the Future” by Kim Stanley Robinson. I’ll be the first to admit that the novel’s characters and writing were short of inspiring, but the parallels of the book’s fictional events to real-time climate disasters is truly eerie, especially last week’s unprecedented flooding in Los Angeles (Chapter 59)!  

And (spoiler alert), the book is not dystopian. Indeed, the Ministry for the Future does solve climate change, utilizing recommendations that experts are actively urging us to adopt (including Half Earth and wildlife corridors!). I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this book since finishing it earlier this summer.