Keep Working Lands Working

Leopoldo “Leo” Miranda-Castro is the owner and manager of Ochille Farm in west-central Georgia. Until the end of 2022, he was the Southeast Regional Director of the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (2018-2022). Leo oversaw the work of approximately 1,300 federal employees in carrying out the Federal Government’s partnership role in conserving fish, wildlife, and plant resources and their habitats within 10 southeastern states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Leo began his work with the US Fish and Wildlife Service as a Private Lands biologist in his native Puerto Rico, later becoming the national coordinator for the private lands program and then Program Supervisor of the Service’s Chesapeake Bay Field Office in Annapolis, Maryland. He then was selected as the Assistant Regional Director of the Southeast Region’s Ecological Services Program. An advocate of public-private conservation partnerships, he points to t