Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the Path to the Wilderness Act

Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books

by Mark W.T. Harvey, William Cronon (Foreword)

As a central figure in the American wilderness preservation movement in the mid-twentieth century, Howard Zahniser (1906-1964) was the person most responsible for the landmark Wilderness Act of 1964. In this deeply researched and affectionate portrait, Mark Harvey brings to life this great leader of environmental activism. Zahniser worked for the Bureau of Biological Survey (a precursor to the Fish and Wildlife Service) and the Department of the Interior, wrote for Nature magazine, and eventually managed the Wilderness Society and edited its magazine, Living Wilderness. His eloquent definition of wilderness still serves as a central tenet for the Wilderness Society: "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."

Genres: Biography, Wilderness, Conservation

328 pages, Paperback

First published September 5, 2000

Reviews

[Newkirk Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unconventional American history class I took as an undergraduate student decades ago helped catalyze my own interest in forest protection at a young age, but not necessarily in an entirely constructive way. During the class, required reading included The Monkey Wrench Gang by anarchist author Edward Abbey – a popular novel glorifying the exploits of a fictional band of ecological saboteurs, and we were also exposed to materials from the radical group Earth First!. For some time after that, I assumed that one of the most effective strategies for protecting natural areas was confrontational activism. I of course grew older, wiser, and was exposed to many different strategies for preserving wild lands – including that of one of America’s greatest but perhaps most under appreciated environmental leaders.

A native of Tionesta, Pennsylvania, Howard Zahniser (1906-1964) never chained himself to a bulldozer or marched with a protest sign hollering slogans. However, his life’s work was among the most effective of any in permanently preserving the last vestiges of America’s wild landscapes.

Since learning of Zahniser’s Allegheny-region roots more than a quarter-century ago while researching and writing a paper on wilderness preservation in the Allegheny National Forest (Natural Area Journal 21: 338-345), I have been taken with the knowledge that such a conservation giant emerged from our midst here in northwest Pennsylvania.

Mark Harvey’s Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the Path to the Wilderness Act chronicles the life of Zahniser (ZON-i-ser) from his early days in Tionesta along the banks of the Allegheny River, to his work for the Bureau of Biological Survey in Washington, D.C. and transition to The Wilderness Society there, to his central role in establishing America’s National Wilderness Preservation System in 1964.

Zahniser’s story, told well by Harvey, carries the important lesson that it is ultimately more effective to patiently dialogue with and politely but persistently cajole your opponents into recognizing the merits of your goals, rather than to confront, litigate, or abrasively agitate. Harvey, a professor of history at North Dakota State University, began investigating Zahniser’s life and work in the mid-1990s. His thorough research included numerous interviews with colleagues of Zahniser and members of the Zahniser family, examining the vast repository of Zahniser’s prolific writings, and visiting places Zahniser lived and worked. Wilderness Forever would be enlightening reading for citizen wilderness advocates, conservation professionals, agency managers of wilderness lands, students of 20th century American history, and general audiences.

Zahniser was Executive Secretary of The Wilderness Society from 1945 to 1964, and wrote the first draft of the Wilderness Act in that capacity in 1956. Congressman John P. Saylor, a conservative Republican from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, introduced Zahniser’s legislation in the House of Representatives. Liberal Democrat Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota introduced the companion version in the Senate. Zahniser spent the following eight years shepherding the legislation through Congress, including attending all 18 public hearings on the bill and overseeing numerous rewrites. Sadly he died of heart failure in May of 1964, just a few months before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness Act into law.

The full title of Zahniser’s legislation is “An Act to establish a National Wilderness Preservation System for the permanent good of the whole people, and for other purposes.” Originally 9 million acres in size, the National Wilderness Preservation System has now grown to nearly 112 million acres in 806 wilderness areas in 44 states through the passage of more than 100 individual wilderness laws. No resource extraction or permanent developments are permitted in the National Wilderness Preservation System, just low-impact forms of undeveloped recreation such as fishing and backpacking.

“There are and will be many temptations by the guardians and supporters of wilderness areas to do those things which will bring more people to the areas and thus into the ranks of those who appreciate and defend them. In this temptation likewise is a great threat to wilderness that must be guarded against, for a wilderness is not a developed recreation area; with development the wilderness recedes.” ~Howard Zahniser, 1957

Though his affinity for the Adirondack Mountains is perhaps better known, Harvey also highlights Zahniser’s deep connection to the Allegheny River valley throughout the book. Every summer, Zahniser and his wife, Alice, brought their children to Tionesta to visit his mother and enjoy the natural surroundings. In 1937, Mr. and Mrs. Zahniser canoed the Allegheny River from Olean, New York, to Tionesta, which could then be done continuously as it was before the days of the Kinzua Dam above Warren.

Zahniser had a particular aversion to inappropriately located dams. In the early 1950s, in his role with The Wilderness Society, he and others successfully fought an ill-conceived plan by the Bureau of Reclamation to construct a dam at the confluence of the Green and Yampa Rivers in Colorado’s Dinosaur National Monument. It was in researching and writing about this campaign in his A Symbol of Wilderness: Echo Park and the American Conservation Movement that Harvey was introduced to Zahniser’s disciplined style of advocacy. Zahniser also later opposed the construction of the Kinzua Dam, which ultimately flooded one-third of the reservation lands of the Seneca Nation of Indians.

Harvey uses the last three chapters of Wilderness Forever to thoroughly recount the extensive dialogue and compromise that went into crafting the legislation that ultimately established the National Wilderness Preservation System. Harvey underscores Zahniser’s unique gift in uniting stakeholders of differing attitudes about forest management behind a common goal, writing, “Confident of his own views, he was unfailingly polite in his dealings with others, even those who strongly disagreed with him. For him, making room for wild lands was a matter of inclusion, of enlarging an old and deep-seated outlook that saw the utility of natural resources as paramount.”

The only ‘drawback’ to Wilderness Forever, if there is one, is that there are no tales of daring exploits in defense of Mother Earth. There is no one chasing down whaling vessels on the high seas, no acrobatic activists perched in redwood trees for weeks on end to save a favorite grove. Such stories are not to be found in Wilderness Forever, because that is not who Howard Zahniser was. Instead, he was a bureaucrat extrodinaire with a profound, deep-seated love for nature whose persistent, pragmatic efforts have led to the permanent protection of vast expanses of America’s most important natural areas for future generations. As environmental historian William Cronon writes in the Foreword to Wilderness Forever, “Howard Zahniser arguably made a greater practical contribution to the protection of wilderness in the United States than any other single individual in the past hundred years.” All things considered, that’s not much of a shortcoming at all.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not know who Howard Zahniser was until I interviewed for a faculty position at Greenville College in Illinois. Howard Zahniser graduated from Greenville College. He was the son of a Free Methodist Pastor and became one of the best advocates of wilderness -- preservation, conservation, and enjoyment. I would like to have known this man. This book is a biography of a man and of the 1964 Wilderness Act. The two are so intertwined they cannot be separated. Besides Zahniser, you are introduced to several other important figures, like Aldo Leopold and Olaus Murie. The book portrays well the development of conservation measures against the politics, state concerns, changes in nature philosophy, and the growth of organizations including the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club. Mark Harvey, the author, does a nice job of bringing the book to a close with a reflection on Zahniser, his influence on conservation and with his children. Quite informative. Highly recommended.

[Glen]

A good history of a part of the conservation movement preceding LBJ's presidency. The writing is good and it is an interesting read. I'd not known much about the wilderness advocates before reading this.

[David Kessler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book very much. A bio of Zahniser who is the primary author of the Wilderness Act which passed Congress in 1968.