William L. Allen III
Vice President, Conservation Services
With the Fund over 20 years, Will currently oversees the Fund’s Conservation Services which are organized around four business lines: the Freshwater Institute, Resourceful Communities, Strategic Conservation, and the Conservation Leadership Network. Will also coordinates organization-wide integrated services across the Fund’s business units and directs Strategic Conservation Planning services in Chapel Hill, NC. Will manages the Fund’s design and delivery of integrated solutions and customized planning services, including green infrastructure plans, strategic mitigation, ecosystem service and optimization models, data-driven decision support maps and tools, and tactical conservation guidance. Will and his team support a wide range of initiatives including multi-species habitat conservation plans, metropolitan greenspace networks, and reuse of urban vacant and underutilized lands. Will and his team have received planning and mapping awards from the American Planning Association, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and Esri, Inc.
Will also has served as an instructor for green infrastructure seminars and courses, publishes peer reviewed journal and trade publication articles, and served as co-editor-in-chief and managing editor of the Journal of Conservation Planning from 2005-2017. Will is a member of the American Planning Association and co-founder of the Society for Conservation GIS. Will holds a B.A. in Urban Studies from Stanford University and a Masters in Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Contact: wallen@conservationfund.org Phone: 919-967-2248 Office: Strategic Conservation Planning, National Headquarters (NC)
Blog Posts:
Houston’s Hurricane Recovery through Smart Green Infrastructure Investments
Finding a Needle in a Haystack: Land Re-Use for Agriculture in a Built-Out City
Greenspace in Megaregions: Collective Action for Green Infrastructure
Strategic Conservation Planning Really Works: Just Ask Nashville
An EPiC Journey: The Ecological Places in Cities Network
Projects
The Science of Strategic Conservation: Protecting More with Less
Billions have been spent on land conservation but too little attention had been paid to how cost-effective these investments...
Green Infrastructure Vision for Cameron County, Texas
Up until now, Cameron County, Texas, has been a hidden gem of nature-based tourism located deep in the Rio...
Upper Neuse Clean Water Initiative
As the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina continues to grow, development threatens to cover valuable land in the Upper...
Reviving a Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico
Runoff of nutrients from farmland in the Mississippi River Watershed is contributing to a hypoxic zone, or “dead zone,”...
Lake County Green Infrastructure Strategy
About halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee, on the shores of Lake Michigan, lies Lake County. Rich with prairies, wetlands,...
Antioch Park, Nashville
Since October 2014, we have been working with the Joe C. Davis Foundation on our latest open space protection...
Coastal Resilience for Greater Baltimore
The Greater Baltimore Wilderness Coalition supports the vision of expanding a connected and protected green infrastructure network in populous central...
Mt. Baldy, Los Angeles
If you’re in the Los Angeles area, look north to the San Gabriel Mountains and you’ll see Mt. Baldy,...
Gulf Coast Conservation Vision Plan
The Gulf of Mexico, with its five bordering states—Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas—is a place of rich human...
Strategic Mitigation for Wind Energy In the Midwest
As concerns mount over the high costs and long-term environmental impacts of fossil fuels, wind has become an increasingly...
Strategic Mitigation for Pipelines: NiSource Gas
NiSource Inc. (NiSource), a Fortune 500 natural gas transmission and storage company, operates a 15,500 linear mile network of...
Strategic Conservation Plan for Nevada
In Nevada, where the federal government owns more than 86 percent of the land, conservation needs to be strategic....
Stones River, Nashville
When we helped complete Nashville’s first Open Space Plan in 2011, we identified the scenic and historic 600-acre Stones River...
Spartanburg Rapid Parks Assessment
Nonprofit organizations and foundations turn to The Conservation Fund to identify protection opportunities for an array of open spaces...
Green Infrastructure Plan for Nashville
Located in Davidson County, Tennessee, Nashville is a uniquely beautiful place, defined by the wide and winding Cumberland River...
San Diego Urban Agriculture
Each year, the United States grants sanctuary to 50,000 refugees displaced by war or political crisis. Many of them...
Atlanta Green Space Assessment
In 2005, the City of Atlanta was losing 500 acres of open space each week to development. Historically, the...
Mapping the Future of Longleaf Pine
Two hundred years ago, the “piney woods” of folk songs were a vast forest sweeping across 90 million acres...
Green Infrastructure Plan for Louisiana Wildlife Management Areas
More than two million people live in Louisiana’s coastal areas, which generate nearly $120 billion in business every year...
Greening the Crossroads: Central Indiana
Good green infrastructure planning can have a major impact on the quality of life for residents of a region. ...
Green Infrastructure Plan for Cecil County, MD
Along Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Cecil County is primarily rural but also smack in the middle of a major metropolitan...
Ecosystem Services for Houston-Galveston
Greater Houston is America’s sixth-largest metroplex—and growing. By 2040, the Houston-Galveston area is expected to gain 3.5 million people,...
Optimizing Green Infrastructure and Farmland for Kent County, Delaware
Confronting haphazard sprawl, Delaware state leaders turned to us in 2006 to assess the green infrastructure resources in Kent...
Green Infrastructure Plan in Texas Pineywoods
Lufkin–Angelina County is part of the colorful east Texas Pineywoods. In 2008, we completed a green infrastructure plan to...
Green Infrastructure Plan for Central Indiana
Central Indiana is the crossroads of America. Good soils for farming, mature forests and clear running rivers and streams...
Chesapeake Bay: Integrated Conservation Solutions
From New York to Virginia, more than 40 major rivers link land and people to the Chesapeake Bay. How...
Strategic Conservation for Kona, Hawai'i
The Kona, Hawaii, Community Development Plan provides a strategic framework for guiding future land development and conservation decisions in...
Chicago Wilderness Vision
An ambitious agenda to create a vibrant green infrastructure of protected and restored lands and waters in the four-state...
Optimizing Farmland Protection in Baltimore County
With one of the nation’s most established farmland preservation efforts, Baltimore County in 2006 reached a major milestone: preserving...
An Emerald Necklace for Los Angeles
As one of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, the Los Angeles region should be a recognized leader in park...
Strategic Conservation Planning
