Kara Reeve
Kara manages National Wildlife Federation’s new Climate-Smart Communities program works in cities and town to promote wildlife-friendly and climate-smart approaches to urban sustainability.
Although some communities are building the climate change resilience of human systems, like the built environment, few are focused on natural systems approaches, and even fewer are focused on safeguarding wildlife from climate change impacts.
Therefore, the Climate-Smart Communities program is designed to help communities use nature-based approaches to prepare themselves for the impacts of climate change in ways that support people, wildlife, and habitats. In this way, an “ecosystem-services” approach to protecting people and property that uses nature-based solutions can provide win-win opportunities for people and wildlife. This program also helps defend against mal-adaptive efforts that may protect property at the expense of wildlife.
Before joining NWF, Kara worked at ICLEI-USA, an organization focusing on local government sustainability, where she led the development and management of ICLEI's greenhouse gas emissions protocols and managed climate adaptation, mitigation, and sustainability projects.
Kara was also the Urban Sustainability Planner for the District of Columbia Office of Planning. She has a Master in City Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with an emphasis on climate adaptation, and previously worked as a policy advocate and grassroots organizer at Clean Water Action, a national non-profit.
Skills: grassroots organizing, campaign strategy, research skills, environmental policy analysis, lobbying, media relations,project management, grant writing. Adobe InDesign Desktop, Adobe Photoshop, ArcGIS, Eudora, Filemaker Pro, basic HTML, Microsoft Office, Powerpoint, SPSS and STATA. Basic Spanish, rudimentary French.