Kathy Viatella

Kathy Viatella is the Senior Project Director with The Nature Conservancy (TNC). Since joining TNC in 2005, she has managed the San Diego project in Southern California, a site that has influenced how The Conservancy works at the state, national and international levels. She works with public and private partners to develop and implement innovative strategies for conserving the most ecologically important mediterranean-type habitats in the heavily populated landscape of Southern California. Viatella has worked with regulatory agencies, conservation groups and the San Diego Association of Governments, the local transportation authority made up of 18 jurisdictions, on a program to use a local sales tax measure to fund the purchase of lands that meet regional conservation objectives and also mitigate for regional transportation projects planned over the next 30 years. Prior to her role with The Nature Conservancy, Viatella was an economist with Environmental Defense Fund in their Land, Water and Wildlife Program where she worked on creating landowner incentives for the conservation of natural resources and rare plants and animals. Her main areas of interest are creation of incentives for natural resource conservation and protection and management of public open space. Viatlla holds a masters of science in natural resource economics from the University of Florida and an undergraduate degree in international development policy from Mount Holyoke College.