David Brower and the Sierra Club

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David Brower was a conservationist, mountain climber, a person of conviction

who loved the wilderness. As a skilled mountain climber, he made the first of seventy routes in

Yosemite and later went on to climb Shiprock in 1939, which at the time was known as “the

last great American climbing problem.” He was a prominent environmentalist and founder of

many environmental organizations, the most well known was The Sierra Club Foundation. He

later went on to establish, among many others, the Friends of Earth (FOE) in 1969 and the Earth

Island Institute in 1982.

It was his dream to preserve the environment, not only for his descendants but for future

generations. This dream was inspired by the work of John Muir (1838-1914), an

environmentalist and Scottish-born American naturalist who was the founder of The Sierra Club

(not to be confused with The Sierra Club Foundation) in 1862. The Sierra Club is one of the

most important conservationist organizations in the United States. David was elected the first

Executive Director and served from 1952 until 1969. He also served on their Board of Directors

three times: from 1941-1953; 1983-1988; and then from 1995-2000. He, as well as Muir, was

considered to be one of the greatest conservationists in America.

The Sierra Club was responsible for establishing The National Park System, which

has been beneficial in preserving wilderness areas all across the United States. There were

several preservation projects attributed to their club. The first was the fight against the Echo Park

Dam in Utah’s Dinosaur National Monument, where conservationists successfully lobbied

Congress to delete Echo Park Dam from the Colorado River Project in 1955. Other projects

in...

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...nd flew to Denver

in June 200 for the Green Party convention and cast his absentee ballot for Nader the day before

he died (November 5, 2000).

As Katharine Lee Bates wrote in her song, America the Beautiful, “for Purple Mountain

majesties - above the fruited plain – America, America – God shed His grace on thee – and

crown thy good with brotherhood – from sea to shining sea”, this is what Brower and

organizations such as The Sierra Club, Friends of Earth and the Earth Island Institute fought

to protect for generations to come – true “brotherhood” , the best of America’s best.

References:

Video (as seen in class): Monumental: David Brower’s Fight for Wild America

http:// www.sierraclub.org/foundation/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Muir

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brower

http://www.scoutsongs.com/lyrics/americathebeautiful.html

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