Our Story
For four decades, RRI (Resource Renewal Institute) has been at the forefront of land conservation and other complex environmental challenges.
RRI, founded by renowned environmental leader Huey Johnson, has a long history of protecting public lands in California and around the world. Forty years after its founding, the nonprofit think-and-do tank continues to push into the future with leading edge, award-winning programs and new perspectives on advocacy.
About Our Founder
RRI Founder Huey Johnson (1933-2020)—a key figure in the land trust movement whose strategic talents and long-term thinking yielded spectacular results—founded Resource Renewal Institute in 1985 following his service as California Secretary of Resources in the Brown Administration (1977-1982).
Johnson was the beating heart of the organization, and his pioneering policies and land acquisitions helped shape the land trust movement that has flourished over the past sixty years. His vision and character defined the identity of RRI for over three decades, inspiring others to become catalysts for change.
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Served as Western Regional Director & president of The Nature Conservancy, where he was instrumental in many Western conservation victories such as Maui’s Seven Sacred Pools and Marin County’s Bolinas Lagoon and Marincello.
Founded The Trust for Public Land and The Grand Canyon Trust, as well as the international arm of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai’s Green Belt Movement.
Created the pioneering policy Investing for Prosperity, one of the first ever comprehensive, long-term environmental plans, proposing a 100-year California resource management plan
With RRI and the CA State Resources Agency, received the 1996 Presidential Award for Sustainable Development from President Clinton for Investing for Prosperity
Promoted nation-scale Green Plans in the early 90s when the first such policies were appearing in The Netherlands and New Zealand
Wrote Green Plans: Blueprint for Sustainable Earth (3d Edition published in 2008 by University of Nebraska Press)
Received the UN Sasakawa Environment Prize in 2001, capping five decades of success building political coalitions to achieve substantive policy change
Received the 2009 Armory Pugsley Medal for outstanding promotion & development of public parks in the U.S.
Received honorary doctorates from Dominican University and Utah State University, where he completed his Masters degree in biology
