Brower, David Ross

▪ 2001

      American environmentalist (b. July 1, 1912, Berkeley, Calif.—d. Nov. 5, 2000, Berkeley), spent nearly 70 years in his effort to protect wilderness areas in the United States. He was involved with such groups as the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Earth Island Institute, and his work resulted in the creation of the Kings Canyon, North Cascades, and Redwood national parks and the Point Reyes and Cape Cod national seashores; protection of the Grand Canyon and Dinosaur National Monument from dams; passage (1964) of the Wilderness Act; and innumerable other environmental-protection victories. When Brower was eight years old, he began taking his recently blinded mother on walks in the Berkeley Hills, and he attributed his interest in the beauty of nature in part to having had to serve as the eyes for someone else. He graduated from high school at age 16, attended the University of California, Berkeley, for two years, until 1931, and in 1933 joined the Sierra Club. Brower went to work for Yosemite National Park two years later and in his six years there ascended its mountain peaks scores of times; he also was able to put his superior climbing skills to good use during his World War II army service both as instructor and in combat. Upon leaving the army, he returned to the job he had held before the war, editing for the University of California Press, and in 1952 he became executive director of the Sierra Club, a position he held until 1969. During Brower's tenure, the club became a powerful activist organization and saw its membership grow from 7,000 to 77,000, but there were disagreements over the level of activism, and he felt pressured to leave office. He thereupon formed the Friends of the Earth and served as its chairman until disagreements with its board caused him to be dismissed in 1984. Although he was reinstated soon thereafter, he resigned in 1986 and returned to the Sierra Club, whose board he had rejoined in 1982. That same year, he founded the Earth Island Institute in San Francisco to back worldwide conservation projects. Brower remained on the Sierra Club's board until 1998. His autobiography, For Earth's Sake: The Life and Times of David Brower, was published in 1990.

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