Mary Anne Piacentini, president and CEO of the Coastal Prairie Conservancy (CPC), has been named the 2026 recipient of the Honorable Cornelius Amory Pugsley Medal, a national honor recognizing outstanding contributions to parks and conservation, the organization announced on October 1.

Administered by the American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration (AAPRA) in partnership with the National Park Foundation, the Pugsley Medal has recognized leaders in parks and conservation for nearly a century. Past recipients include Lady Bird Johnson, Laurance Rockefeller, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, Houston conservationist Terry Hershey and National Park Service founder Stephen Mather.

A city planner by training, Piacentini has dedicated her career to the Houston region, helping shape both its physical landscape and how people experience it. When she joined CPC in 1999, the organization protected approximately 1,300 acres. Today, CPC has permanently conserved 36,607 acres and counting of coastal prairie, wetlands, farms and ranches across Southeast Texas.

Under Piacentini’s leadership, CPC has pursued a landscape-level approach to conservation, working across property lines and county boundaries to protect large, connected landscapes that sustain wildlife habitat, working lands and communities. The strategy extends from the Katy Prairie in Harris and Waller counties west of Houston to coastal counties along the Gulf to Victoria and beyond.

The urgency of that work is increasingly visible as the region grows. Waller County, home to nearly 50 percent of CPC’s flagship Katy Prairie Preserve, was the fastest-growing county in Texas and the second-fastest-growing county in the nation from 2024 to 2025, according to U.S. Census Bureau data reported by The Texas Tribune. At the same time, park lands account for 12 percent of Houston and just one percent of Katy, compared with a national median of 15 percent of city land used for parks and recreation, according to the Trust for Public Land. With the Houston region projected to reach 10 million residents by 2050, conserving large landscapes and expanding access to green space will become increasingly important for the region’s resilience and quality of life.

CPC’s nearly 20,000-acre Katy Prairie Preserve is a prominent example of this landscape-level conservation approach. The preserve is a mosaic of prairies, wetlands, working farms and ranches, with four individual preserves open to the public for birding, education, wildlife viewing and experiencing the prairie firsthand.

“This award may have my name on it, but it represents what an entire community has built together over decades,” Piacentini said. “Every acre we’ve conserved has depended on people choosing to work

together. When you fly into Houston from the west and see the Katy Prairie Preserve as a sea of green surrounded by development, you are seeing what that collaboration has made possible. I am deeply honored by this recognition, and I hope it underscores what communities can accomplish when we share a commitment to protecting natural places that matter.”

“Mary Anne Piacentini represents conservation leadership at its best. Mary Anne has turned conservation vision into lasting results on the landscape. Her career reminds us that conservation requires both ideas that inspire and leadership that gets things done — and that is precisely the legacy the Pugsley Medal celebrates,” said Lewis Ledford, AAPRA Pugsley Committee chair; president and CEO — Emeritus, Americas State Parks.

A native of Maine, Piacentini began her Houston tenure as a planner with the City of Houston’s Mayor Office of Community Development and later served as executive director of Friends of Hermann Park, where she helped lead a comprehensive master planning effort for the 500-acre park and secured significant public and private investment in its future. Her career has carried that foundation in parks and city planning into conservation through her work with the Coastal Prairie Conservancy.

In Texas, where approximately 95 percent of land is privately owned, landscape-level conservation depends on collaboration. The Pugsley Medal recognizes Piacentini’s leadership in bringing together landowners, farmers, ranchers, government agencies, scientists, businesses, funders and communities around a shared vision for expanding parks and conservation lands.

Piacentini holds a master’s degree in city planning from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of New Hampshire.

With development rapidly transforming the region, the Coastal Prairie Conservancy has set a goal of conserving at least 50,000 acres by 2035 — if not sooner.

About the Coastal Prairie Conservancy:

The Coastal Prairie Conservancy is a nonprofit land trust dedicated to sustaining a resilient Texas by preserving coastal prairie, wetlands, farms and ranches to benefit people and wildlife forever. Preserved lands play an important role in flood control, cleaner air and water, outdoor recreation and wildlife habitat. To learn more about the Coastal Prairie Conservancy’s conservation efforts, visit www.coastalprairieconservancy.org.