Putnam Livermore, who helped save California public lands, dies

[...] as co-founder of the Trust for Public Lands, first attorney for the Nature Conservancy in the Western United States and a leader in conservation law, Mr. Livermore, who died Nov. 1 at the age of 93, helped keep the forces of growth and development at bay as he worked to save huge chunks of the state for future generations.

Born in San Francisco on May 29, 1922, Mr. Livermore used his lifetime of family connections and experience to convince wealthy Californians that the state needed their land more than they needed the money it could bring.

Mr. Livermore’s “kindness, patience and thoughtful consideration of others made him a favorite with eccentric donors of large pieces of property and he became a highly effective advocate for preserving open space,” his family said in a notice of his death.

Mr. Livermore attended the Thatcher School in Ojai (Ventura County), UC Berkeley, Yale Law School and Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley.

A photo of the boat crossing the finish line 7 lengths ahead of the field was featured on his wall for the rest of his life.

While Mr. Livermore’s great-grandfather came to California to work in the gold fields and his grandfather became a founding director of PG&E when he sold the family’s Sacramento-area power company, his parents, Caroline Sealy Livermore and George Banks Livermore, were both prominent conservationists.

Mr. Livermore “was a good guy,” said John Burton, a former Bay Area legislator who now heads the state Democratic Party.

Mr. Livermore, whose brother, Ike, was Gov. Ronald Reagan’s secretary for natural resources for eight years, was a friend of the governor and did some political legal work for him.