Lauren O’Shea

December 2, 2022

Lauren Ward has served as the Executive Director of Conservation Without Conflict since January 2021. Conservation Without Conflict is both an idea and a coalition of public and private partners who support voluntary, collaborative, and sustainable approaches to conserving at-risk and listed wildlife and their habitats while keeping working lands working. Ward has also served as the General Counsel and Director of Regulatory Affairs for Forest Landowners Association. She led the organization’s outreach program, bringing wildlife agency officials together with forest landowners and diverse stakeholders to build trust and execute solutions for species conservation on private forestlands. Throughout her career, Ward’s interdisciplinary expertise in natural resources policy, social sciences, and land management has given her a unique perspective on collaborative conservation and the role that innovative tools and partnerships can play in achieving landscape-scale goals.

Ward earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Georgetown University in Washington, DC, and her J.D. from the University of Georgia School of Law. She also holds a Master’s in Natural Resources and a Ph.D. in Forest Resources from the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia. Ward’s doctoral research examined the perspectives of private forest landowners regarding the Endangered Species Act and its implementation on private forestland across the United States.

Ward and her family live in Monroe, Georgia, where she enjoys hiking, running, and cooking homemade family recipes.