Museum of Nature patrons continue high-stakes giving

Ross and Trisha Beaty dropped off a $5-million cheque at Queen’s University Friday, a scant 24 hours after giving $4 million to the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa.

The Beatys are visiting from Vancouver, spreading support for environmental projects as they go.

He’s a mining entrepreneur, she’s a physician.

They both love nature, and have set up a charitable foundation, the Sitka Foundation, to ensure that their attachment to the land is backed up with dollars.

But not everyone forks over $9 million in two days. We asked Ross Beaty about it.

“Everybody’s different in their motivation for giving. In my case, I’m a person who is passionate about nature protection, environmental protection, just because I’m out in the environment all the time,” he said.

“It’s where I seek pleasure and fulfilment both physically and mentally, and I have always loved nature. So it’s very easy for me to focus our giving on nature protection, knowing that most people give to human things.

“They give to schools and hospitals and all that is fine and well, but humans are one species” while millions of other species “don’t have voices, and they are not very well protected.”

“I feel that I have had great fortune in my personal life and my personal business world, where I have done very well. I don’t have a particular desire to die with my money.

“So I’m more than happy to give it back.”

The museum gift includes funds for a new cryogenic lab to preserve genetic material from plant and animal specimens, as well as an endowment to pay for post-doctoral researchers.

The Queen’s donation sprang out of a Queen’s request for a donation to help pay for a new engineering building.

Beaty told the university he was happy to donate but wanted to support environmental work.

From that the idea grew into a research centre to promote clean water, including safe drinking water for remote communities in Canada and around the world.

“I said that’s perfect,” Beaty said Friday.

“It’s entirely appropriate because water — you can’t have human existence without it,” and it’s vital to wildlife as well. tspears@postmedia.com Twitter.com/TomSpears1

I don’t have a particular desire to die with my money. So I’m more than happy to give it back.