Sydney Lea, Newbury, Vt.

In 2001, Lea volunteered to co-chair a $35 million capital campaign to permanently protect 350,000 acres of undeveloped forest, including 450 miles of lakeshore habitat around Grand Lake Stream, Maine, containing the purest strain of native landlocked salmon in the region. “You don’t find these kinds of waters in the Northeast anymore,” says Lea, a lifelong outdoorsman who is also Vermont’s poet laureate. With his help, the purchase by Downeast Lakes Land Trust, a collective of guides and residents, was successful, and Lea is now working on their new fund-raising campaign to protect an adjacent 22,000 acres.

Ted Martin and Kathy Miranda, Fresno County, Calif.

After years of dedicating his time to conservation, Martin donated $2 million to the Fresno Regional Foundation to restore and preserve the Kings and San Joaquin Rivers. When he became dependent on a wheelchair for mobility, his daughter, Kathy Miranda, stepped in to follow up on the ground with restoration projects he has set in motion, like a new trout hatchery. “I became his hands and feet,” she says.

Mike Healy, Worland, Wyo.

As the land manager of LU Ranch, two-thirds of which is made up of public land open to outdoorsmen, Healy has worked to implement wildlife-friendly fences that allow elk migration, the reintroduction of trout into Grass Creek, and off-channel water sources for livestock in order to protect stream banks. The ranch’s program to remove and replace invasive plant species will affect 75 miles of streams. “We have to be aware of our impact on public and natural resources,” says Healy.