Charles Waterton (June 3, 1782 - May 27, 1865) was an English naturalist and explorer.

Waterton was born at Walton Hall, West Yorkshire near Wakefield. In 1804 he travelled to Guyana to take charge of his uncle's estates near Georgetown. In 1812 he started to explore the hinterland of Guyana, making four journeys between then and 1824. He later described his discoveries in his book Wanderings in South America.

In 1817, he climbed St. Peter's in Rome and left his gloves on top of the lightning conductor. Pope Pius VII asked him to remove the gloves, which he did.

In the 1820s he returned to Walton Hall and built a nine-foot-high wall around three miles of his estate, turning it into the world's first wildfowl and nature reserve. He also invented the bird nesting box . The Waterton Collection is now in Wakefield Museum .

Waterton was an early opponent of pollution. He fought a long-running court case against the owners of a soapworks which had been set up near his estate in 1839, and sent out poisonous chemicals which severely damaged the trees in the park and polluted the lake. He was eventually successful in having the soapworks moved.

Waterton Lakes, now a national park in Alberta, Canada, was named for him by Thomas Blakiston in 1858.