Sarah Cooksey joins Delaware Nature Conservancy as director of conservation programs

The Nature Conservancy in Delaware has announced the hiring of Sarah W. Cooksey as director of conservation programs. For more than 20 years, Cooksey has served as an environmental program administrator for the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, most recently heading up Delaware's Marine and Coastal Program. Among her most notable accomplishments at DNREC, she chaired the state's Sea Level Rise Advisory Board, a committee that produced the state's first major report on its vulnerability to sea level rise and potential adaptation solutions. More recently, she represented Delaware in developing the Mid-Atlantic Ocean Plan in conjunction with several federal agencies. Cooksey is based in TNC's Milton office.

"We're incredibly fortunate to have Sarah joining our team at TNC Delaware," says Executive Director Richie Jones. "Over her multi-decade career at DNREC, Sarah has accumulated deep and far-reaching expertise in many of the areas that are at the heart of TNC's work in Delaware and beyond - large-scale land protection and habitat restoration, climate-change and sea-level rise adaptation, water quality and quantity solutions, green infrastructure, energy policy and regional ocean planning. Sarah will add tremendous value and help us better serve our mission of conserving the lands and waters on which all life depends."

Cooksey holds bachelor's and master's degrees in biology from Towson University, with an emphasis on plant ecology. Complementing her education in terrestrial science, she has vast work experience in water resources, mostly in ocean and coastal management. Her work includes extensive partnerships with federal and state agencies. "I'm sure that will be a tool in my work at The Nature Conservancy," Cooksey says.

As director of conservation programs, Cooksey will oversee ongoing restoration projects at TNC preserves in Milford Neck and Pemberton Forest, and managing other TNC priority initiatives, such as large-scale land protection, the establishment of a water fund in the Brandywine-Christina area and an increased effort to make conservation more relevant to urban audiences.

"I want to make sure the Delaware Chapter continues to contribute heavily in the strategic priorities for The Nature Conservancy writ large," Cooksey says.

With more than 1 million members and over 1.2 million acres protected worldwide, The Nature Conservancy is the world's leading science-based conservation organization. The Delaware Chapter has helped to protect more than 30,000 acres in the state since 1989 and actively manages more than 5,000 acres in its Delaware preserves.