The executive director of California-based environmentalist group Rainforest Action Network (RAN) died last week in a swimming accident in San Pancho, Nayarit.
Rebecca Tarbotton, from Vancouver, drowned after being caught in strong waves last Wednesday at the small beach resort just north of Sayulita. She was 39 years old.
“The coroner ruled cause of death as asphyxiation from water she breathed in while swimming,” RAN said in a statement issued Friday. A spokesman for the Puerto Vallarta municipal police said paramedics tried to revive Tarbotton, but she died before reaching hospital.An experienced and respected activist, Tarbotton dedicated her life to environmentalism, quickly rising up the ranks of the San Francisco-based RAN, where she became the first female executive director.
“We need to remember that the work of our time is bigger than climate change. We need to be setting our sights higher and deeper. What we’re really talking about, if we’re honest with ourselves, is transforming everything about the way we live on this planet,” Tarbotton said in a keynote address last October.
Among her many accomplishments, Tarbotton helped build a major women’s farming alliance in northern India and most recently spearheaded a landmark agreement with Disney, having pressured the entertainment giant into no longer procuring paper for its global operations from endangered rainforests in Indonesia.
“The board is reeling from this loss. Becky captured everything we planned for…RAN. Vision, brilliance, good cheer, selfless devotion and humility. All wrapped in a superhero’s flowing cape. Her fierce determination to do right by us, and the world, will be missed,” said Andre Carothers, chairman of RAN’s board of directors.