Linda K. Walker

Linda Walker is senior advisor for forests at World Wildlife Fund. She guides WWF-US’s terrestrial conservation work in Borneo, Sumatra, Papua, and Papua New Guinea—part of WWF’s Southwest Pacific and Indonesia priority place. She advises WWF leadership on forest-related corporate, policy, and finance strategy and on building the corporate and philanthropic partnerships that sustain science-based conservation at scale. She works closely with WWF offices across the region and with network leads on forest-risk commodities such as palm oil, rubber, timber, and cocoa, keeping strategy and implementation aligned.

Previously, Linda led corporate engagement for the WWF-US Forest team, including WWF’s Forests Forward program, which advises major companies on responsible sourcing and nature-based solutions that meet sustainability goals while protecting forests and the rights of forest communities. Before WWF, she spent more than a decade at The Nature Conservancy advancing land stewardship and protection in Washington State and Maryland and worked for the Rainforest Alliance as a Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) chain-of-custody auditor.

Linda holds a BA in geography and environmental studies from Bucknell University and a master’s degree in forestry from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, where she studied the impacts of the pulp and paper sector in Sumatra. She lives in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia with her husband, son, and rescue border collie.

Education

• MF - Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
• BA - Geography, Bucknell University

Areas of Expertise

• Sustainable forest management
• Forest Stewardship Council certification
• Development of responsible purchasing policies for forest products
• International forest products trade and supply chains
• Indonesia pulp and paper issues