Legacy: Portraits of 50 Bay Area Environmental Elders

by John Hart, Nancy Kittle

The San Francisco Bay Area abounds in natural beauty. Despite a burgeoning population of 6.7 million, the region is blessed with incomparable open space: vibrant hills, seashores, forests, wetlands, and the shimmering expanse of San Francisco Bay. This legacy thrives, in most cases, not because benevolent governments have provided for it, but because certain stubborn citizens felt called upon to work for its preservation, often against great odds.
Legacy celebrates fifty of these extraordinary individuals with inspiring profiles by acclaimed Bay Area writer John Hart and superb duotone portraits by local photographer Nancy Kittle. The book offers glimpses into the lives of a generation of environmental leaders—including David Brower, Ike Livermore, Margaret Owings, and Edgar and Peggy Wayburn—who were born before World War II and who had made their commitment to the conservation cause well before the first Earth Day in 1970. From stopping bay fill to blocking the construction of freeways through Golden Gate Park to the creation of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, these elders’ environmental activism has been a model for the world. Legacy reveals why and how each elder became passionate in the cause of conservation and offers lessons for shaping our environmental future.

160 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2005

About the author

Lots of John Harts: This one is the California-based environmental journalist and poet, born 1948, author of fifteen books and counting, winner of sundry awards. My most recent title is "Storm Camp," my second poetry collection, from Sugartown Publishing. Next up, from University of Oklahoma Press, is my edit of an ancestor's frontier memoir: "Bluecoat and Pioneer: The Recollections of John Benton Hart, 1864-1868." Historian John Monnett calls it "a genuine attic find."