The Tribune

LOUIS Bacon has been recognised by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) with a lifetime achievement award for his support of efforts to conserve threatened habitats, protect open spaces and safeguard clean water.

The billionaire American hedge fund manager and Lyford Cay resident received the honour in Washington, DC, at the Partnership’s eighth annual Capital Conservation Awards Dinner last month.

The gala event brought together policy-makers, conservation advocates and outdoor industry leaders, who heard TRCP President and CEO Whit Fosburgh extol Mr Bacon’s remarkable work with former Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar and the US Fish and Wildlife Service to create the 170,000-acre centrepiece of the Sangre de Cristo Conservation Area in southern Colorado.

“Theodore Roosevelt’s legacy is one of great environmental success, but conservation success today requires as much, or more commitment than in Roosevelt’s time when tens of millions of acres of natural wildlife habitat could be set aside with the stroke of a pen,” said Mr Bacon. “Conservation success today is also about tackling the issue of environmental justice. We must guarantee that all citizens have access to clean water and clean air as well as access to the outdoors that we all love.

“Too often we have failed to protect minority and underserved communities from the ravages of toxic industrial pollution. In my home state of North Carolina, for example, miscarriages of environmental justice are far too rampant. There are more hog farms in North Carolina than anywhere else in the country, with millions and millions of gallons of toxic animal waste stored in open air pits and sprayed untreated across the landscape.

“Minority and poor communities suffer horrendous odours, devastating air pollution and contaminated water. This is simply unacceptable.”