Forbes covers Louis Bacon’s award at the Audubon Society Gala

A recent article published on the Forbes website, covering the Audubon Society Gala where Louis Bacon was presented with an award, has recognised the philanthropist’s devotion to the environment.

Louis Bacon was presented with the Dan W. Lufkin Prize for Environmental Leadership by the society in recognition of his fight to preserve Trinchera Blanca Ranch in southern Colorado, by placing 170,000 acres of land into a conservation easement, the largest ever in the state.

The article states how Louis Bacon has spent close to $400 million on 202,000 acres of land in the United States which have been placed into easements already or will be soon: Land which includes Robins Island in New York’s Peconic Bay, which he donated to the Nature Conservancy and an ancestral plantation in North Carolina. The article notes that Bacon has also worked to preserve land internationally in Scotland and the Bahamas.

During his acceptance speech, Bacon quoted from, what he referred to as, the Holy Book of the South: Gone With the Wind. “Scarlett’s father admonishes her for her disregard of her plantation home. He says, ‘Land is the only thing in the world worth working for, worth fighting for, worth dying for, because it’s the only thing that lasts,’ ” Bacon recited. “ Kind of sums up my philosophy,”

Bacon’s Moore Charitable Foundation recently gifted Audubon with funds for a resource centre that will focus on training advocates to fight needless energy developments that would affect the environment in a negative way. Louis Bacon has firsthand experience in this area, having spent over $10m to defend the Trinchera Blanca Ranch from energy companies planning to install power lines.