The Billionaire Quietly Protecting Western Lands From Oil and Gas Drilling

Hansjörg Wyss is one of the most influential billionaire philanthropists that nobody much talks about. We’ve seen his Wyss Foundation’s giving expand from Western conservation into work in Africa, ocean conservation, even journalism.  And that’s just the environmental giving. Wyss is also a major progressive donor, on the board of the Center for American Progress alongside Tom Steyer. Oh, and he also gave a combined $250 million to Harvard for the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering (remember when everyone got so mad at John Paulson for giving $400 million to Harvard?).   The publicity-shy philanthropist has mostly managed to cultivate a low-key reputation as a Swiss entrepreneur who fell in love with the American West as a college student. Part of that image comes from his track record of buying up beloved land to protect it from industry. Securing land in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and more has always been at the core of his philanthropic interests, and he’s still very much engaged in the cause, as he recently made a gift of an undisclosed amount to the Trust for Public Land, to buy and retire oil and gas leases on more than 24,000 acres in Wyoming.