In July 2026, WCS president and CEO Adam Falk spoke with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler about his first year leading the organization.Falk said conservation depends as much on relationships with Indigenous peoples, local communities, governments, and funders as it does on protecting wildlife.He supports “30 by 30,” but argues that where areas are protected, how they are managed, and their ecological integrity matter as much as acreage.Falk also discussed the collapse in U.S. government funding for WCS, the need for long-term philanthropy, and closer cooperation among conservation organizations.
Soon after becoming president and chief executive of the Wildlife Conservation Society, Adam Falk visited the giraffe keeper at the Bronx Zoo. What struck Falk was the source of the keeper’s commitment. If a giraffe needed help in the middle of the night, he said, the keeper would come in because of his bond with the animal.
Falk recognized something familiar. Before joining WCS, he had been a theoretical physicist, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, president of Williams College, and president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Academics often pursue highly specialized work that matters deeply to them. A university leader has to support those individual efforts while helping the institution work toward shared goals. Falk found much the same challenge at WCS: leading people whose motivation is rooted in the work itself.
