Peter T. Jenkins

Peter Jenkins on top of Mt. Harvard in Colorado Director of International Conservation

Areas of Expertise: International conservation law and policy, invasive species, wildlife trade, biotechnology, Endangered Species Act

Peter manages Defenders’ campaigns aimed at protecting global biodiversity reforming the wildlife trade, and blocking imports of non-native invasive species into the United States.

Before joining Defenders in 2006, Peter served for five years as Attorney/Policy Analyst for the International Center for Technology Assessment and the Center for Food Safety, and for one year as Senior Attorney for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. From 1996 to 2000, he specialized as a consultant on both endangered and invasive species issues. Before that, Peter worked as a contractor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Albuquerque on its Mexican wolf reintroduction project as a program manager; as an adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico Law School’s Center for Wildlife Law; and as an attorney/policy analyst at the U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment. He is the principal author of the report, Broken Screens: The Regulation of Live Animal Imports in the United States, and co-authored the report Harmful Non-Indigenous Species in the United States. He is a founder of the National Environmental Coalition on Invasive Species, and a member of the IUCN Invasive Species Specialist Group.

Peter earned his B.A. from Hampshire College, Masters in Environmental Studies from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and J.D. from the University of Puget Sound Law School.