Laura Catalina Quintero Uribe

Contact
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research

Department of Ecological Modelling

Permoserstr. 15
04318 Leipzig
Germany

Building 1.0, Room 204

Phone.: +49 341 235- 4355 (Zoom)

laurac.quintero@ufz.de

ResearchGate

Research Interests

I am a socio-ecological scientist interested in the dynamics of complex social-ecological systems and how they shape the scaling-up of ecological restoration. My research examines human–nature interactions, sustainable landscape management, and how policies and management strategies influence land-use change. I explore how participatory processes can help halt biodiversity loss and drive transformative change to restore ecosystems and landscapes. My work connects stakeholder perspectives with ecological and land-use modelling to identify trade-offs and co-benefits for nature, agriculture, and human well-being. I have experience in stakeholder mapping and workshop facilitation, implementing the Nature Futures Framework in participatory planning, and translating qualitative visions into spatially explicit scenarios. Using land-use modelling, I explore how restoration and rewilding scenarios could shape future land use.

At the UFZ, I am working with Dr. Tatiane Micheletti in the BirdFutures project within the TripleBird project. Funded by the Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt under the Forschung für Nachhaltigkeit strategy, BirdFutures uses bird populations as indicators of changes in nature and biodiversity across Europe. The project combines bird observations collected by our partner, the Dachverband Deutscher Avifaunisten, with environmental and climate data to forecast future bird distributions and biodiversity scenarios. My research centers on developing socio-ecological scenarios to co-design model-based frameworks with stakeholders from the business, finance, and nature conservation sectors. The objective is to investigate how diverse stakeholder perspectives can inform sustainable conservation and restoration strategies. Our goal is for our scenarios, in conjunction with predictive species models, to provide robust, science-based decision support for policymakers (i.e. in accordance with the EU Nature Restoration Regulation).

CV

Please see full list of publications here.