Barbara Yeaman (born December 16, 1924) is an American conservationist, who is the founder[1][2] of Delaware Highlands Conservancy, an accredited[3] land trust serving Pike and Wayne counties, in Pennsylvania, and Sullivan and Delaware counties, in New York.
[dead link] Yeaman later earned a degree in Environmental Studies at the University of California at Irvine.
In her early career, Yeaman worked as a Public Education Consultant and Water Conservation Coordinator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C.[4] She moved to the Upper Delaware River region in the early 1980s and became involved with the Citizens Advisory Council that helped to establish the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River under the auspices of the National Park Service.
[5][6][7] This intense experience as well as a cancer diagnosis is what led Yeaman to seek new preservation tools, such as conservation easements, to protect land along the Upper Delaware River; and it is ultimately what sparked her to found the Delaware Highlands Conservancy.
The headwaters of the Upper Delaware River provide drinking water for New York City and Philadelphia.