David Brower, pioneer of the US
environmental movement and founder of
Friends of the Earth, died on Sunday
November 5th at age 88. A nature lover and
fanatic mountain climber, David Brower
became involved in the Sierra Club, a small
group of hikers and outdoors people, in
1933. When he stepped down as its president
in 1969, the Sierra Club had grown to be
the most important environmental
organization in the United States with
77,000 members. Brower became notorious for
scoring the cancellation of several large
dam projects, founding national parks, and
initiating legislation to protect pristine
areas.
After leaving the Sierra Club in 1969,
Brower set up two new environmental groups:
the League for Conservation Voters, a
permanent environmental lobby, and Friends
of the Earth. Under the motto "think
globally, act locally," the environmental
movement took on a new direction: global
environmental protection in collaboration
with a network of local environmental
groups. Brower crossed the ocean in 1970 to
visit environmentalists in Europe, and FoEI
was founded two years later.
Brower was nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize three times. In 1982, he founded the
Earth Island Institute, a group that
carries out environmental projects all over
the world. He knew how to provide new
stimulus to the environmental movement,
within the United States and also abroad,
time and time again.
Arie Vestering, FoE Netherlands
This article is a shortened version of
one published in the January 2001 edition
of Milieudefensie, the magazine of FoE
Netherlands.
