Edward Abbey, writer
(1927 - 1989)

As the author of "Desert Solitaire" (1968) and "The Monkey Wrench Gang" (1975), Edward Abbey gained recognition as a preservationist, and a defender of the American Southwest and its inhabitants.

Mr. Abbey attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the University of New Mexico, and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland as a Fulbright Scholar. After serving in the U.S. Army at the end of World War II, he spent the summer of 1948 on a hitch-hiking trip of the American West. He served two, twelve months as a park ranger at Arches National Monument in Utah, and wrote about it in "Desert Solitaire."

His alter-ego, "Cactus Ed," grew out of the traditional western hero as social misfit/loner, and was based on characters he created in "The Brave Cowboy" (which became the movie, "Lonely Are The Brave") and "The Monkey Wrench Gang."

Ansel Adams, photographer
(1902 - 1984)

Ansel Adams' famous black and white photographs of the Sierra Nevada, Yosemite National Park, the Grand Canyon, and Yellowstone National Park made a lasting contribution to the environmental movement and to the art of photography.

Born in San Francisco, California, Ansel Adams spent nearly every day of his childhood taking solitary walks along the wilds of the Golden Gate. At the age of eighteen, he put aside a career in music to pursue photography. He joined the Sierra Club in 1919, spending summers in Yosemite Valley and publishing his photos and articles in the club's Bulletin. In 1928, his first one-man exhibit was held at the Sierra Club's San Francisco headquarters.

A tireless craftsman and technician, he wrote ten volumes of a manual on photography. Throughout his life, Adams spoke and wrote on behalf of conservation, but his photographs provided the best argument for preserving nature's beauty.

John James Audubon, artist & naturalist
(1780 - 1851)

John James Audubon is best recognized by the national society which was named in his honor; Audubon has since become synonymous with wildlife conservation. His "Birds of America" (1838) included 435 colored plates which contained 1,055 figures of life-size birds.

The son of a French naval officer, Audubon was born in Louisiana, and educated in Paris, France. As a teenager, he managed his father's plantation outside of Philadelphia, where he began to draw the indigenous birds. Based on these drawings, he obtained enough subscribers in England to begin work on "Birds of America." The book was a great success, and his accompanying descriptions of the birds were published in Edinburgh, Scotland, under the title "American Ornithological Biography."

In 1842, he purchased land along the Hudson River in what is now Audubon Park in New York City. Before his death, he collaborated with John Bachman on a new project called "The Quadrupeds of America," which was published after his death in 1854.

David Brower , environmental activist
(1912 - 2000)

Beginning his career as a world-class mountaineer with more than 70 first ascents to his credit, Brower served as the first executive director of the Sierra Club from 1952 to 1969. Under his leadership, the Club's membership expanded tenfold, from 7,000 to 70,000 members, becoming the nation's leading environmental membership organization.

Brower later founded Friends of the Earth, a worldwide environmental network now active in 52 countries, and co-founded the League of Conservation Voters, the nation's most influential environmental political action group. In 1982, Brower founded Earth Island Institute, an incubator organization that fosters and supports activist projects around the world.

David Brower successfully fought to stop dams in Dinosaur National Monument and in Grand Canyon National Park. He led campaigns to establish ten new national parks and seashores, including Point Reyes, the North Cascades, and the Redwoods. He was instrumental in gaining passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964, which protects millions of acres of public lands in pristine condition. While with the Sierra Club, he pioneered the use of media advocacy, including full-page newspaper ads to dramatically communicate conservation issues. He also initiated an aggressive publishing program that would produce over 70 major books—including oversize formats with stunning high-quality nature photographs—over his lifetime. Twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, Brower was also instrumental in leading environmentalists to rethink their early support of nuclear power.

(Text excerpted courtesy of the The David Brower Center.)

Rachel Carson, writer & ecologist
(1907 - 1964)

When Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" was first published in 1962, her account of the destructive effects of pesticides on the ecology made her a target for major chemical manufacturers. But their campaign to discredit Ms. Carson only increased public awareness to the dangers of pesticides to wildlife and humans. The book is still widely regarded as the cornerstone of modern environmentalism.

Ms. Carson graduated magna cum laude from the Pennsylvania College for Women and earned her masters degree in Zoology from Johns Hopkins. She taught the subject for several years until a growing interest in the sea, sparked by studies at the Marine Biological Laboratories in Massachusetts, led to an appointment at what would later become the Fish and Wildlife Services.

In 1951, she published "The Sea Around Us," which explored the geological and historical aspects of the sea. It held the top spot on the New York Times best-seller list for thirty-one consecutive weeks, and won the John Burroughs Medal and the National Book Award.

Lois Gibbs, grassroots activist
(born June 25, 1951)

In 1978, Lois Gibbs was a housewife living in Love Canal, New York. After reading a series of articles in the Niagara Falls Gazette about the chemical waste dump in town, she suspected a possible connection to health problems in her neighborhood. That's when she discovered that 20,000 tons of chemical waste had leaked directly underneath her entire neighborhood.

The local school board refused to permit her children to attend school outside of the contaminated area, and the government ignored requests to relocate residents or clean up the area. So Gibbs went door to door and organized her neighbors into the Love Canal Homeowners Association.

As a result of their efforts, President Jimmy Carter issued an executive order in October of 1980, that paid for the evacuation of all 900 families in the Love Canal area and established the Superfund process, which cleans up hazardous areas.

Click here to learn more about what happened at Love Canal from the University of New York at Buffalo Library.

John Muir, conservationist
(1838 - 1914)

As a writer and explorer, John Muir's great respect and enthusiasm for such natural treasures as the Sierras and the Northern glaciers were a driving force in the environmental movement.

Muir wrote a series of articles in Century magazine that contributed greatly to the creation of Yosemite National Park; he was also instrumental in bringing about Sequoia, Mount Ranier, Petrified Forest, and Grand Canyon national parks. He wrote many books describing his nature expeditions, but it was "Our National Parks" (1901) that inspired President Theodore Roosevelt's innovative conservation programs.

In 1892, John Muir, Robert Underwood Johnson, and other supporters formed the Sierra Club to protect Yosemite from those who would enroach upon its boundaries. Muir was the organization's first president.

Click here to view the John Muir Exhibit at SierraClub.com.

President Theodore Roosevelt , conservationist
(1858 - 1919)

The youngest man ever to serve as President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt placed approximately 230 million acres under public protection as either a National Park, National Forest, wildlife preserve, or other federal protection.

After reading John Muir's "Our National Parks," Roosevelt met him in Yosemite and they began planning what would become the boldest environmental program of any sitting president.

A man of great accomplishment before reaching the presidency, his resume included Governor of New York, Police Commissioner of New York City, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and deputy sheriff of the Dakota Territory. He was also President of the American Historical Association, an original member of the American Institute of Arts and Letters, and the author of thirty-five books.

Click here to view the Smithsonian Institute's webpage honoring Theodore Roosevelt.

JoAnn Tall , activist
(born June 5, 1952)

From her Indian-owned and operated radio station, JoAnn Tall broadcasted news of a proposed nuclear testing site on sacred Lakota land in Black Hills, South Dakota. She organized a resistence camp of tipis and sweat lodges on the site until the proposal was finally defeated. Her continued grassroot efforts raised awareness of the health hazards of local uranium mining to the Lakota people in the area.

A member of the Oglala Lakota tribe living on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Ms. Tall worked tirelessly to improve conditions on the reservation and protect Lakota land. In 1989, she co-founded the Native Resource Coalition, which organized tribes nationwide to halt the construction of waste dumps and incinerators on tribal land.

The mother of eight children, JoAnn Tall also serves on the board of the Seventh Generation Fund, an American Indian rights advocacy organization. Currently, she is campaigning to stop railroad construction through the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Henry David Thoreau, writer
(1817 - 1862)

In 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved himself and a few possessions to a small hut on the edge of Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. "Walden: Life in the Woods," chronicled the two years he spent virtually isolated from human contact and civilization; his philosophy on principled living and man's relationship to the environment is considered the quintessential environmentalist manifesto.

A graduate of Harvard University, he wrote many essays and articles on nature and lived simply on the allowance he received from the family's pencil business and his work as a surveyor. Thoreau rejected, among many things, the increasing materialism which resulted from the Industrial Revolution, and chose to live as simply as possible.

Among Thoreau's other notable writings were "Civil Disobedience," an anti-war, anti-slavery essay which sprung from his serving a night in jail for refusing to pay a voting tax, and A Plea For Captain John Brown, one of a few articles written in defense of the abolitionist.

From his Senate speech, January 19th

1. A constitutional amendment stating: "Every person has the inalienable right to a decent environment. The United States and every State shall guarantee this right."

2. Rid America of massive pollution from the internal combustion engine, hard pesticides, detergent pollution, aircraft pollution, and nonreturnable containers.

3. Enhance quality of life through family planning.

4. Create an environmental advocacy agency that will involve citizens in environmental policy activities.

5. Reduce ocean pollution by regulating oil drilling.

6. Establish an environmental education program for all levels of education.

7. Develop mass transit to reduce the use of private automobiles.

8. Adopt a national land use policy to reduce the chaotic, unplanned combination of urban sprawl, industrial expansion, and air, water, land, and visual pollution.

9. Establish a national minerals and resources policy that encourages wise use and conservation.

10. Establish national air and water quality policies.

11. Create a nonpartisan national environmental political action organization that encourages public involvement at all levels of government