Carter Roberts ’82 has served as president and CEO of World Wildlife Fund in the United States since 2005 and grown the organization fivefold during that time. WWF, the world’s largest network of international conservation organizations, works across 100 countries and enjoys the support of nearly 1 million members in the United States and more than 5 million members worldwide. 

Roberts is the founding chair of Enduring Earth, a collaboration that joins policy reform with performance-based finance to help governments meet their 30x30 goals around the world. Roberts has been deeply engaged in crafting and executing transactions in Brazil, Colombia and Peru that have conserved over 88 million hectares across the Amazon, just over 13% of the entire Amazon basin. For the past 20 years, Roberts has overseen the development of groundbreaking corporate partnerships to drive supply chain efficiency, food production sustainability, water efficiency, science-based targets to reduce emissions and stepwise transitions to lighten their impact on the planet. 

Under Roberts‘ leadership, WWF also worked with others to double the population of tigers around the world and significantly reduce poaching of elephants and rhinos. In 2023, Roberts also founded the Boundless Conservation Collective, a cohort-based fellowship program that seeks to cultivate, nurture and sustain a new generation of global environmental leaders with an emphasis on resilience, wonder and awe.  

This event is the Omenn ’61 Science Policy Lecture. David Wilcove, the Henry W. Putnam Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the High Meadows Institute and professor of public affairs, will moderate.

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Livestream available .