FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE      CONTACT:
November 6, 2000           Allen Mattison, 202-675-7903

          SIERRA CLUB MOURNS DEATH OF DAVID BROWER

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Sierra Club today mourns the death of David
Brower, who shaped the face of the modern environmental movement and
helped guide the Club's rise to national prominence.  Brower died
Sunday night at his home in Berkeley, California, at the age of 88.

Brower, a Sierra Club member since 1933, served as the Club's first
executive director, a position he held from 1952 through 1969.  During
his tenure as executive director, the organization's membership rose
from 2,000 to 77,000 members.  The Club's membership elected him to
three-year terms on the Board of Directors in 1941, 1983, 1986, 1995
and 1998.

"The world has lost a pioneer of modern environmentalism," said the
Sierra Club's president, Dr. Robert Cox.  "Like the California redwoods
he cherished, David towered above the environmental movement and
inspired us to protect our planet.  If not for David's leadership, the
Grand Canyon could well have been dammed -- but he led the fight tooth
and nail to preserve that awesome treasure.  His colleagues at the
Sierra Club are deeply saddened by his death.  We will miss the
Archdruid for both his vision and his courage.

"In the last decades of his life, David's passion became restoring the
earth from the damage people had wrought," Cox continued.  "David
spread the gospel of what he called `Global CPR' -- the need for
conservation, preservation and restoration to repair our world.  As a
new generation of environmentalists picks up David's mantle and
practices what he preached, restoration well may become David's
greatest and longest-lasting legacy."

"David's passion for protecting wild lands and living sustainably
drove him to blaze a new trail for the environmental movement," said
Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope.  "Today's environmental
movement and landscape have been, in large part, shaped by David's
energy, ideas and leadership.  Because of his unrelenting efforts, our
families can explore and enjoy wildlands from the California coast to
Alaska to Cape Cod in their most spectacular, pristine beauty.
David's vision also helped environmentalists embrace the concept of
living sustainably, within the earth's capacity to provide for us.
 From family planning to ending commercial logging on public lands,
David's efforts to promote sustainability have made people think
deeply about the long-term consequences of their behaviors."

Perhaps Brower's best-known accomplishment was his success during the
1960s in leading a Sierra Club campaign to block two hydroelectric
dams proposed for the Grand Canyon.  Brower took out full-page ads in
the New York Times equating the proposal to flooding the Sistine
Chapel.  He also led Sierra Club efforts to pass the Wilderness Act,
halt dam construction in Dinosaur National Monument, and create Kings
Canyon, North Cascades and Redwoods National Parks and Point Reyes and
Cape Cod National Seashores.

An avid mountain climber and skier, Brower served in the 10th Mountain
Division during World War II and pioneered 70 first-ascents in an
outdoor adventure career that took him around the globe.  In addition
to leading the Sierra Club, Brower was nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize three times, and he founded the Sierra Club Foundation, League
of Conservation Voters, Friends of the Earth and the Earth Island
Institute.  Through Sierra Club Books, Brower also launched the genre
of large-format conservation photo books to heighten public awareness
of wildlands, bringing images of America's landscapes and a strong
conservation ethic into people's homes.

The Sierra Club is the nation's oldest and largest grassroots
environmental organization, with over 600,000 members nationwide.

                            # # #
-- 
Dr. Robert Brulle
Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy
School of Environmental Science,
    Engineering, and Policy
Drexel University
3141 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA  19104
Phone (215) 895-2294  Fax (215) 895-2267
email [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]
Home Page: http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~brullerj/
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Many of us knew David Brower of Friends of the Earth.
Each person will provider her or his own comments.
He did REALLY great work, IMHO.

-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Monday, November 06, 2000 12:01
Subject: [toeslist] David Brower passed away - 5 November


This is a great loss for the earth.  I hope his spirit will remain
with each of us.

-Melissa
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FWD:

6 November

Just a short note to share that David Brower passed away last night.
Even Archdruids don't live forever.  Take time this week to reflect
on what incredible things can be accomplished from a vision,
a motivation and leadership to inspire people all over the world
to work together to protect our fragile planet.

David E. Ortman
Seattle, WA
Friends of the Earth (1975-97)
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