Sierra Club Mourns

Death of David Brower

     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.



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