Recommended Reading

• A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold, 1948.  Should be required reading for all farmers, philosophers, economists, and politicians!
• Nature on the Edge: Lessons for the Biosphere from the California Coast by Bruce Byers (2024).  In this book, Byers explores the relationship between humans and nature at the edge of colliding worldviews: on the one hand, the human-centered Western worldview that sees the near-total human domination and exploitation of nature as proper and good; and on the other, an ecocentric worldview in which humans are seen as only one small part, an equal member, of Earth’s biotic community. Like myself, he believes  it is important and often inspiring to understand the history of nature conservation in a place. That history is always full of individual “heroes” who model for us the effectiveness of individual action, and how they frequently catalyze collective conservation action. Importantly Byers carefully surveys ecocentric philosophies and worldviews rooted in places like these and argues for their importance in developing a more harmonious and sustainable relationship between humans and our home planet. 
• Hetch Hetchy History – The First Battle – and still ongoing!
• The Big Lie Against Wilderness – Unfortunately, some academics trapped by “indoor philosophy,” and now many social justice advocates, who should know better, argue that wilderness is an antiquated idea that ignores the fact that people lived in those places, regarding wild nature “as a transcendent realm apart from the Native people who inhabited those realms.”    It has now become one of the primary arguments by social justice advocates who think attacking “white supremacy” means we must  abolish the idea of Wilderness. Close examination reveals that this “Big Lie About Wilderness” is a literary/philosophical construct little related to the Real Wilderness Idea that conservationists have used to establish the National Wilderness Preservation System. Here are some essays which attempt to correct this “big lie”:
  • Criticizing Muir and misunderstanding the foundation of American nature conservation by Bruce A. Byers (October 22, 2021)
  • Wilderness and Traditional Indigenous Beliefs: Conflicting or Intersecting Perspectives on the Human-Nature Relationship?
    By Roger Kaye, Polly Napiryuk Andrews, and Bernadette Dimientieff in Rewilding Earth (December 8, 2021)
  • Reclaiming Wilderness: It Tells Us Who We Are, and We Lose It at Our Peril by Kenneth Brower (June 4, 2014)
  • The Real Wilderness Idea by Dave Foreman (2000) (PDF)
• This is the American Earth – Ansel Adams (PDF) – The First of the Celebrated “Exhibit Format” Books – This document gives the history of the original 1955 exhibit and 1960 book, and its legacy since that time. by Harold W. Wood, Jr., November, 2021.
• The “Exhibit Format Series” – from This is the American Earth to the modern coffee table book.   My favorite remains Baja California and the Geography of Hope by Joseph Wood Krutch, Photographs by Eliot Porter.  This series was the result of David Brower’s strong belief that the book was a media that would outlive all others.  As Finis Dunaway observes, “Although David Brower experimented with other kinds of images, including motion pictures, he believed that the coffee table book offered the most powerful medium to present the Sierra Club’s message. “It has long been recognized,” he explained, “that the book, for all that TV, radio, and periodicals may do, still has a status of its own in influencing thought. It lasts. It is kept and referred to. It is quoted. This is particularly true of the exhibit-format books.” The book, with its weightiness and materiality, was something that would be around, long after a decision was made or a vote was cast. Motion pictures and other media—as Robert Flaherty had discovered with the fate of The Land in 1942—could easily be discarded and forgotten. The book, Brower believed, would endure. It would always be there, serving as a reminder of wild places preserved or wild places destroyed, weighing on the conscience of those who voted against the wilderness.” 

People and Places

• George Pettit – Exhibits on the History of National Parks and Wilderness from John Muir through Today – from the Yosemite Conservation Heritage Center. (PDF)
• The First Earth Day – I was there!  (YouTube video interview celebrating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day).
• Clearwater Wilderness (Washington State) – As President of Friends of the Clearwater, I worked for years (1975-1983) to establish this area, and testified  in Congress in 1982 in support of the establishment of this small Wilderness area near Mt. Rainier (Tahoma). This designation was ultimately successful – even though the Forest Service told me at the time that “it will never happen.” ( I was amazed decades later to attend the 50th Anniversary of The Wilderness Act Conference in New Mexico in 2014 that a new generation of Forest Service and BLM employees, whose predecessors had traditionally strongly opposed Wilderness designation, were now in full support!
• Alaska Lands Act – I worked for a long time on this movement, including full time between school semesters.
• John Muir Global Network – A portal to celebrating and encouraging environmental protection through the inspiring life of John Muir (1838-1914), the founder of the worldwide conservation movement.
• The Giant Sequoia Portal – including my work on websites for the Sequoia Wild Heritage Project, and the Sierra Club Sequoia Task Force including its  Citizen’s Guide to Sequoia National Monument.
• Tribute to Maymie Kimes – We should not forget the work of those who have preserved the memory of our leading conservationists, such as Bill and Maymie Kimes did with John Muir.
• Ron Eber – Pacific Northwest Environmental History
• Lady Bird Johnson – First Lady from 1963-1969, her “Beautification of America” projects went beyond mere widlflowers.
• Stewart Udall – Secretary of the Interior under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, accomplishing more land protection than any previous Secretary of the Interior.