![tarbotton](http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2012/12/tarbotton-201x300.jpg)
by Dan Brekke and Jon Brooks
Environmental activists in the Bay Area and beyond are mourning the death of Rebecca Tarbotton, the executive director of the San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network.
Tarbotton, 39 years old, drowned Wednesday while vacationing in Mexico.
She was widely seen as a leader in bringing younger, more diverse voices to a male-dominated movement, and she described herself as a "pragmatic idealist." She recently brokered an agreement with the Walt Disney Company to change the way it acquires and uses paper.
Memorial services will be held in San Francisco and in Tarbotton's native British Columbia.