Ryan Bidwell

Ryan Bidwell is the Global Director, Project Finance for Permanence for The Nature Conservancy. Ryan leads a global team charged with bringing together governments, Indigenous peoples and local communities, funders and other partners to secure long-term conservation, full and sustained funding and community benefits through a transformative strategy called Project Finance for Permanence, or PFP. TNC’s work on PFPs is through an ambitious partnership called Enduring Earth, an unprecedented collaboration among leading conservation organizations and philanthropists to permanently protect ocean, land and freshwater at a pace and scale needed to help address the climate and biodiversity crises and support community economic development. In 2024, TNC’s Enduring Earth work led to the closing of new Project Finance for Permanence initiatives in Mongolia and the Great Bear Sea of Canada that will achieve local governments’ and communities’ ambitious conservation and community development goals, covering more that 57 million hectares of lands, freshwater and ocean.

Prior to joining TNC, Ryan managed a diverse portfolio of grantmaking to protect biodiversity, support Indigenous rights and advance sustainable livelihoods as Protected Areas Program Officer for the Wyss Foundation. Spread across more than 25 countries, these projects supported the protection of more than 45 million acres of land and more than 3 million square kilometers of ocean habitat. Previously, Ryan led efforts to establish new protected areas for several U.S. conservation organizations including the Conservation Lands Foundation, The Wilderness Society and Colorado Wild. Ryan received a M.S. in Natural Resource Policy from the University of Washington and a B.S. in Environmental Sciences from Oregon State University. Ryan is based in Durango, Colorado, USA.