Mark White Director of
Partnership Programs
The Nature Conservancy of Hawai‘i
Mark has
worked for the Conservancy for 18 years. For
the first 12 years, Mark served as Director for the Maui Program
focusing on
the development of Watershed Partnerships. Throughout the 90’s, he helped develop
and implement plans for the East Maui Watershed Partnership. In 1998, he led the
formation of the West Maui Mountains Watershed Partnership. The success of these Maui partnerships led to the
formation of 10 watershed
partnerships on 6 islands in Hawai'i. Mark was also one of several who encouraged and
supported the formation of the Maui Invasive Species Committee (MISC) in 1997
which subsequently led to the formation of invasive species committees on each
major island. From 2000 to 2002, Mark
served as the Director of Conservation Programs for the Conservancy.
During this time he also assisted the
Coordinating Groups on Alien Pest Species (CGAPS).
In
2003, he became the Director of
Partnership Programs and helped lead the formation of the Hawai'i
Association
of Watershed Parternerships (HAWP), whose
mission is to help create and develop the capacity of watershed
partnerships throughout Hawai'i. Through these
partnerships, Mark worked routinely with landowners, government, and
private
agencies to promote, develop and implement regional conservation
partnerships
that abate threats to watersheds and biodiversity at the landscape
scale. During 2004 and 2005, Mark served as Acting Director
of the Kaua‘i and later the O‘ahu Program of the
Hawai‘i Program of The Conservancy. During this time, Mark
also assisted in the
formation of the Pacific Invasives Learning Network (PILN), which
fosters
learning and techncial exchanges for invasives species practitioners
throughout
the Pacific. He is also currently Acting Director of the Maui Program.
