Isabeau Ottolini

Isabeau Ottolini completed her PhD at CareNet (UOC) in 2026 with the thesis titled Reimagining Wildfire Risk Communication from a wildfire-prone territory. An ethnographic engagement with Pego Viu in the País Valencià, Spain. This research took place within the PyroLife programme, a H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie International Training Network for Integrated Fire Management. Through this programme, she collaborated with researchers and practitioners in wildfire sciences, communication, sociology, geography, ecology and fire management. Moreover, she did secondments at the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA, USA), European Forest institute (EFI, Germany), and the Forest Sciences and Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTFC, Spain). These experiences enabled
her to contribute to research and its dissemination through diverse formats and spaces, crossing disciplinary and sectoral boundaries and connecting academic work with practice and territorial realities around wildfires.

With an academic background in both Environmental Sciences (UNED, Spain) and Social Sciences (WUR, Netherlands and Recartografías-UV, Spain), Isabeau works at the intersections of critical sociology and environmental science. Her previous research explored wildfire prevention through environmental education in Alacant, conflicts over wolves in Asturias, and water conflicts and rural depopulation in Aragón. She has also worked with the NGOs Euromontana and Entretantos on sustainable mountain grazing and climate change adaptation in pastoralism through the EU LIFE projects Oreka Mendian and LiveAdapt.

As a socio-environmental scientist, Isabeau explores complex and often tense human-nature interactions in rural territories, with fire and grazing as transversal themes, and activism and hope as key elements for societal transformation. Committed to critical and situated perspectives, she addresses socioenvironmental issues through participatory and ethnographic methodologies, co-creating knowledge with local inhabitants to foster more sustainable, resilient, and vibrant rural territories. In particular, her work seeks to nurture collective hope, bridge research and practice, connect across disciplines, sectors, and worldviews, and advance socioenvironmental justice.

Beyond academia, Isabeau is a shepherdess in the Mediterranean mountains. Through hands-on work, she advocates for food sovereignty, pastoralist ways of life, and the commons, grounding her commitment to rural territories in the everyday realities of working with the more-than-human. Within the framework of the FAO’s International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP 2026), she is also part of the ILC Interregional School for Young Pastoralists 2026, through which she engages with people-centred land governance and collective action around pastoralism. She is also actively involved in land defence and territorial stewardship initiatives in the País Valencià, including Pego Viu and Recartografías, where she connects research, collective action, and participatory approaches
to local territorial and disaster governance.

Through these diverse engagements, she seeks to bring research into dialogue with the everyday practices, struggles, and hopes of those who care for and defend rural territories.