James N. Levitt

JAMES N. LEVITT

Jim Levitt is director of the Program on Conservation Innovation at The Harvard Forest, and a research fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. In addition, he leads the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s annual Conservation Leadership Dialogue.

Levitt is the editor three books on conservation policy and practice: Conservation in the Internet Age: Threats and Opportunities (Island Press, 2002), From Walden to Wall Street: Frontiers of Conservation Finance (Island Press and Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2005), and Conservation Capital in the Americas, (Lincoln Institute, in collaboration with the Ash Center at the Harvard Kennedy School, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University and Island Press, 2010).

He has written and lectured extensively in the United States and internationally on conservation innovation in the twenty-first century. He has also served on the National Advisory Board of the Long-Term Ecological Research program sponsored by the National Science Foundation, and is a past Vice Chair of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. He currently serves as a director or advisor of QLF/Atlantic Center for the Environment, the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale, Saving Land (the journal of the Land Trust Alliance), the Patagonia Sur Foundation, and Patagonia Sur, LLC.

A graduate of Yale College and the Yale School of Management, Levitt has three decades of experience as a consultant and advisor to large public, private and non-profit organizations. In 2008 he was named by the Yale School of Management as a Donaldson Fellow, an honor given to alumni for career achievements that “exemplify the mission of the School.” He was also awarded the medallion of Chile’s Chamber of Deputies in recognition of his work to advance land conservation in that nation.