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Sierra Club Pioneer Severs Ties Brower says group has lost `sense of
urgency'

Glen Martin, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, May 19, 2000 ©2000 San Francisco Chronicle


David Brower, one of the Sierra Club's most charismatic and respected
members and a seminal figure of the environmental movement, is resigning as
a member of the board, claiming the organization's leaders have lost their
activist zeal.

Brower, 87, a former executive director of the club and one of the
country's early rock climbing enthusiasts, announced yesterday that he has
tendered his resignation "with no regret and a bit of desperation."

Brower accused the club's board of inadequately responding to such crucial
issues as overpopulation, immigration, mass transit and wilderness
preservation.

"The world is burning and all I hear from them is the music of violins,"
Brower said of the board.  "The planet is being trashed, but the board has
no real sense of urgency.  We need to try to save the Earth at least as
fast as it's being destroyed."

Club President Carl Pope expressed disappointment at Brower's announcement
and said he hoped Brower will reconsider.

Brower is perhaps third only to John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt as an icon of
the American conservation movement.

He helped pioneer many of the climbing routes up Yosemite's big granite
walls, and he has been heavily involved in environmental issues for his
entire adult life.

LONG, ROCKY RELATIONSHIP

Brower's relationship with the club has a long and rocky history.

He joined the organization in 1933, served as its first executive director
in the '50s and '60s, and shepherded it through a period of spectacular
growth.

But the board removed him from office in 1969 because members were unhappy
about his often strident views and his management of the organization's
finances.

Brower subsequently founded Friends of the Earth and the League of
Conservation Voters.  Both now rank among the nation's most respected and
powerful environmental groups.  He was subsequently re-elected to the board
in 1983, 1986, 1995 and 1998.

Brower said the board has forgotten the club's original mandate of
protecting the Sierra Nevada, and has allowed the National Park Service to
promote "smelly, polluting diesel" buses as a preferred mass transit scheme
for Yosemite National Park instead of a rail system.

IMMIGRATION CONTROVERSY

He also chastised the club's leadership for refusing to take a stand on
U.S.  immigration issues.

"Overpopulation is perhaps the biggest problem facing us, and immigration
is part of that problem," Brower said.  "It has to be addressed."

Brower also criticized the club for referring to the recent designation of
the Sequoia National Monument in the southern Sierra by President Clinton
as a "towering achievement."

The monument status will do little to protect old-growth sequoias, Brower
said, "because it will be administered by the (U.S.) Forest Service, and
they have had a long history of favoring forest exploitation over
preservation."

Finally, Brower condemned the board for conducting its meetings in private.


The board is convening tomorrow to seat new members and elect an executive
committee.

"They meet in secret, in closed sessions," he said.  "All these retreats
that are going on are doing nothing to save the world, and that's what they
should be doing -- trying to save the world."


`FABULOUS LEADER'

Pope called Brower a "fabulous leader" and said he was sorry Brower was so
upset that he felt compelled to resign.


"But David has resigned before," said Brower.  "We'll miss him, but at the
same time, this is a large organization, with 600,000 members, 63 chapters
and dozens of committees.  None of us agree with everything the board does
-- including me."


Pope said many of the issues that upset Brower were not made by the
board, but by semiautonomous chapters and committees.  He said the
club's general membership voted not to take a stand on immigration.


As far as public transit to Yosemite goes, Pope said, "I don't think we are
being disloyal to rail if we also promote buses.  Rail should certainly
have a larger place, but the reality is it will never completely supplant
buses and trucks.  On that issue, at least, I think the club does disagree
with David."


Pope said he hoped Brower would withdraw his resignation.
"He has one more year to go on a six-year term, and then he'd have to
rotate out for a year before he could serve again," Pope said.


©2000 San Francisco Chronicle

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