Carol Harris Mayes
Carol Harris Mayes has more than 20 years of conservation experience. She is the
founding Executive Director of The Nature Conservancy’s Virgin Islands and
Eastern Caribbean Program and the former Director of Science
and Stewardship for The Nature Conservancy’s North Carolina Chapter.
She also has taught Biology in the U.S. and abroad and has served as a Sea Turtle Researcher
for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and TNC.
Her keen love of natural history and appreciation for science was first inspired
by her childhood. Growing up on a North Carolina dairy farm, she developed a strong land
ethic, which is the cornerstone of her career today. She vowed to become a biologist
at age 10, while watching a loggerhead sea turtle nest hatch at sunrise on a
barrier island.
Carol earned a B.A. in Biology from the University of North Carolina at
Greensboro and a M.S. in Coastal Ecology from the University of North Carolina at
Wilmington.
Throughout her career she has created and implemented myriad community
conservation programs, which gave her the opportunity to identify premier
natural properties, negotiate land purchases, design land stewardship and
management policies and engage in fundraising. She enjoys working with
landowners, community and corporate leaders, volunteers and land trusts to
achieve conservation goals – and to protect the places people live in and love.
Carol is an expert at leading collaborative initiatives to success. Her
vision and tenacity led to the creation of the Virgin Island Conservation Data
Center and a region-wide conservation program for the Longleaf Pine Ecosystem.
She is also a skilled fundraiser who has worked extensively with individuals,
foundations, and state and federal agencies to generate funding for environmental
protection.
Carol is a multi-generational landowner living on her family’s farm. She and
her relatives are working to sustain family ownership and traditional forestry and
agricultural practices. She is active in local and national conservation
organizations, and is knowledgeable about ecosystems in the temperate and
tropical Americas, Eastern and Southern Africa and Western Europe. She enjoys
bird watching, sailing, and painting.
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