Foundation approach leverages 20 years of sustainable seafood movement successes

Commitment is part of the pledge drive for the Chatfield Reservoir Environmental Pool

USAID and Walton Family Foundation Partnership Will Protect Indonesia's Fisheries and Marine Biodiversity

Sustainably managed fisheries could generate additional $2.3 billion in revenue for fishing communities

At the Walton Family Foundation, we believe conservation solutions that make economic sense are the ones that stand the test of time. Our mission is to improve lives and secure healthy ocean and river ecosystems by aligning environmental, social and economic interests.

The Walton Family Foundation is pleased to announce that Monica Medina is joining the environment program as deputy director, effective May 31. In this capacity, Monica will also direct the oceans initiative, which invests in the Americas—the United States, Mexico, Chile and Peru—and Indonesia to end overfishing, improve ocean health and preserve coastal livelihoods. Monica Medina most recently served as the senior director of international ocean policy at the National Geographic Society.

The Walton Family Foundation is pleased to announce that water issues expert Ted Kowalski is joining the environment program team as senior program officer. Kowalski will lead the Colorado River basin initiative, which pursues innovative solutions to address the basin’s water quantity issues against a backdrop of ongoing drought, increasing demand for water and insufficient water management policies.

The Walton Family Foundation is proud of our decades-long track record investing in real solutions to tough environmental challenges. Over the last five years alone, we’ve invested $351 million in efforts to support real, lasting ecological restoration in the Gulf of Mexico, to tackle the water policy challenges in the Colorado River Basin, to conserve some of the most ecologically rich seascapes around the globe and to push for sustainable fisheries management that benefits fishing communities and families. Our grantees include many of the nation’s leading environmental groups, as well as local organizations working on behalf of the communities that depend directly on healthy rivers, oceans and wildlife.

A longtime leader in environmental science and conservation who has worked for nearly three decades to preserve ecosystems across the globe has been selected to direct the environmental grant-making efforts of one of the country’s largest foundations.

We applaud the USDA’s announcement today that the Colorado and Mississippi River basins will be included as critical conservation areas in the agency’s new Regional Conservation Partnership Program. The new initiative, part of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, is a Farm Bill conservation program that will focus on locally-driven projects that restore rivers, improve water quality and support economies across the country.