Maurica (more-EE-suh) joined CSLRCD in early 2023 to facilitate a fine-scale vegetation mapping project across three counties that, once complete, will inform natural disaster risk assessment, high-priority conservation work, and innumerable restoration and research projects across many land-based fields—please ask her about it! 

Maurica has made San Luis Obispo County her home and living laboratory since graduating from Cal Poly with a B.S. in Forestry and Natural Resources. She taught forestry, GIS, and environmental sciences in Cal Poly’s Natural Resources Department for some 40 quarters combined, and served in several roles at Swanton Pacific Ranch. 

Picking up interesting rocks, raising feral children, and consulting with a wide array of local entities has kept Maurica busy for the last 20+ years. Her life’s work is encapsulated by a mentor’s directive to “Leave it better than you found it,” applied to doing right by the land and people in our disrupted climate.