Environmental Leader Dies In Swimming Accident

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The executive director of San Francisco-based environmental group Rainforest Action Network has died in a swimming accident at a beach near Mexico's Pacific coast resort of Puerto Vallarta, police said Friday.

Rebecca Tarbotton, 39, was swimming Wednesday at a beach about a half hour north of Puerto Vallarta when she was caught by a wave and tossed around, said Adan Leyva, spokesman for Puerto Vallarta municipal police.

Leyva said that paramedics tried to revive her after she was brought ashore, but she was dead by the time she reached the hospital.

In a statement on its website Friday, Rainforest Action Network said Tarbotton — who friends called Becky — was travelling with her husband and friends.

A native of Vancouver, British Columbia, Tarbotton took the group's helm in 2010, the first woman to do so.

Rainforest Action Network works with major corporations on environmental projects, and Tarbotton recently brokered an agreement with the Walt Disney Company that changed the way the entertainment giant uses paper, RAN said.