Chris Weaver
Managing Director, Namibia
Chris has been the director of WWF’s Namibia program since 1993, providing guidance and assistance to Namibian partner organizations in the development of one of the world’s most highly regarded community conservation programs. Prior to working for WWF, Chris spent 14 years in the southwestern United States (Arizona and New Mexico) and southern Africa (Lesotho, Botswana, Mozambique, and Zambia) working with native Americans and African pastoralists on common property natural resource management projects.
In Namibia, Chris has assisted partner organizations to establish 59 communal conservancies and been a key catalyst and facilitator to the introduction of market-based conservation. This innovative conservation approach places extensive emphasis on mobilizing and empowering local communities to manage their wildlife resources, and in turn, receive wildlife-generated income. “Assisting Namibia's conservancy movement to grow and produce conservation impacts at a national scale has been one of the most satisfying processes in my life” says Chris.
As a manager of five projects in Southern Africa, Chris has demonstrated an unflinching ability to achieve results and facilitate enabling environments through which communities and conservation prosper.
“Our market-based approach to conservation has dramatically altered the mindset of communities from animosity to that of embracing wildlife as a livelihood asset.”
More on Chris
Title
Managing Director
Education
- University of Arizona, B.S. Range Management
- University of Arizona, M.S. Range Ecology
Areas of Expertise
- Rangeland management
- Design and implementation of management plans/activities for common property natural resources in the United States and overseas
- Conservation and tourism
- Natural resource planning and inventories
- Project design and proposal development
- Project management
