Eric Coppenger

Eric leads a globally dispersed team at African Wildlife Foundation that engages governments and multilateral institutions in Africa, North America, Europe, and Asia. This team collaborates across the organization to drive policy and financing decisions that integrate wildlife and wild lands into development agendas in Africa and design new programs that deliver benefits for people and wildlife in priority landscapes. Eric started his conservation work in the backcountry of U.S. national parks and later in western Uganda. Over the past 20 years, he has played key roles in program design addressing a diverse set of conservation strategies, and engaged institutional partners with the Environmental Law Institute, Earth Day Network, Conservation International, Rare, and African Wildlife Foundation. He has worked across Africa for more than two decades but has also worked in Southeast Asia and with island states. Eric volunteers for and has served on the steering committees of the Global Island Partnership and the Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group.