Category: Uncategorized

Stewart Udall, Secretary of the Interior under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, was born on January 31, 1920 (died 2010).  Udall is considered one of the most effective leaders of the nation’s primary land management agency during the environmentally active years of the 1960s and 1970s.

Udall came from a family with long roots in Arizona politics and public service.  His grandfather served in the Arizona Territorial legislature before statehood in 1912; his father was an Arizona Supreme Court Justice; his younger brother, Morris (popularly known as “Mo”) was a congressional representative and ran for president in 1976.

Udall kept up the family traditions.  He served two years as a Mormon missionary before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, where he served as a gunner on a B-24 bomber.  He and brother Mo formed a law firm after the war, through which they worked for desegregation in schools and other public facilities in Arizona.  He served three terms in the U.S. Congress.

His national impact began when President Kennedy appointed him as Secretary of the Interior in early 1961, a position he held for nine years, serving also under President Johnson.  Although he and President Johnson supposedly had a rocky relationship, he was a close colleague of the First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, working with her on her platform to beautify America (learn more about her here) .  He was an outspoken advocate for strong federal land conservation policies, including the acquisition of lands for parks and other conservation purposes.  During his term as Secretary, he led the acquisition and reservation of nearly 4 million acres of federal lands, including 4 national parks, 9 national recreation areas, 20 historic sites, 8 national seashores and lakeshores, and more than 50 national wildlife refuges.

He also led the enactment of several new laws that facilitated the further development of federal conservation lands.  He helped win passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964, the law that provided formal definition of wilderness and initially designated more than 9 million acres as federally protected wilderness (learn more about the Wilderness Act here).  He similarly aided the National Wild and Scenic River Acts of 1968  that extended environmental protection to river systems, now including nearly 13,000 miles of 208 rivers in 40 states.  Perhaps most important, however, was the creation of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, established by Congress in 1964.  The law provided funds for the acquisition of conservation lands, using revenue from sale of excess federal property, federal gas taxes on motor boat fuels and federal taxes on offshore oil leases, along with general appropriations.  The act funded federal actions, but also included grants to states for similar actions.  Funds available have varied substantially over time, but reached nearly $1 billion in the late 1990s-early 2000s.

Udall believed that outdoor recreation was both healthy and therapeutic.  His physical prowess was notable.  He was an all-conference guard on the University of Arizona’s basketball team.  He climbed both Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Fuji, and he often led extended hikes, up to 50 miles, while serving as Secretary of Interior.  At age 84, he hiked from the bottom to the rim of the Grand Canyon.

He brought the issue of conservation to the nation’s conscience in 1963 with his book, The Quiet Crisis.  The book extolled the essential connection between the land and the American people, and it encouraged Americans to look past short-sighted economic exploitation of the land toward a longer-term approach that we today call sustainability.

References:

American National Biography Online.   Stewart Lee Udall.  Available at:  http://www.anb.org/articles/07/07-00863.html.  Accessed January 30, 2017.

National Park Service.  Land and Water Conservation Fund.  Available at:  https://www.nps.gov/subjects/lwcf/index.htm.  Accessed January 30, 2017.

Schneider, Keith and Cornelia Dean.  2010.  Stewart L. Udall, Conservationist in Kennedy and Johnson Cabinets, dies at 90.  New York Times, March 20, 2010.  Available at:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/nyregion/21udall.html.  Accessed January 30, 2017.

University of Arizona Library, Special Collections.  Stewart Lee Udall:  Advocate for the Planet Earth.  Available at:  http://www.library.arizona.edu/exhibits/sludall/index.html.  Accessed January 30, 2017.

On January 30, 1820, Edward Bransfield, a British seaman, landed on the continent of Antarctica, the first known person to do so.  He claimed the continent for the British Empire.  But that isn’t how the story ends.

In truth, no one knows who was the first person to set foot on Antarctica.  Polynesian fishermen and traders had traveled south to the ice fields for centuries.  Later, European explorers took up the challenge of going ever farther south in search of whales, fish, hides—and land.  They discovered more islands closer to the pole on successive voyages.

Captain Cook himself, the most famous of Pacific explorers, is credited with being the first European to conclude that a continent existed under all that ice.  In 1773, aboard the HMS Resolution, Cook crossed over the Antarctic Circle for the first time. However, he never landed on Antarctica itself, driven back from the shore by closing ice.

That honor was left to Edward Bransfield, an Irish seaman stationed with the British fleet in Valparaiso, Chile.  Born in 1785 in the County Cork, Bransfield went to sea at 18 and immediately proved himself a worthy sailor and navigator.  He rose quickly to become a master, the non-officer with sole responsibility for a ship’s navigation.  When news came to Valparaiso in late 1819 that an English merchant ship, the Williams, had been driven far south by strong winds and discovered even more islands (the South Shetland Islands), the fleet commander assigned Bransfield to join the Williams and continue exploring.

Bransfield led his ship to a continuing string of newly discovered islands, claiming each in turn for his government.  On January 20, 1820, the ship reached what is now called Trinity Peninsula, the northernmost part of the Antarctic continent.  Bransfield and the ship’s captain went ashore, becoming the first known humans to stand on the continent.  Antarctica, they claimed, was now the property of the British Empire.

The English claim did not stand without challenge.  In the intervening century, seven countries—Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom—have made claims to some of Antarctica.  In addition, the U.S. and Russia maintain a “basis for claim” that keeps their hands in the pie.

Fortunately, however, Antarctica has not been sliced up into national territories and exploited for military or commercial purposes.  And that status was secured forever on December 1, 1959.  On that date, twelve countries signed The Antarctic Treaty (Japan, South Africa, and Belgium joined those with territorial claims).  The treaty assures that the continent will be used only for peaceful purposes, that scientific study will be free and open, and that all knowledge from those studies will be exchanged and freely available to all.  Moreover, the “Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty,” added in 1991, designates the Antarctic as a “natural reserve, devoted to peace and science.”  It prohibits commercial development of the continent, instead focusing on its extraordinary scientific and biodiversity value (learn more about the treaty here).

References:

Beyond Endurance Expedition.  Edward Bransfield.  Available at:  https://archive.is/20120723161803/http://www.beyondendurance.ie/history/explorer/6.  Accessed January 29, 2018.

Cool Antarctica.  The UK in Antarctica, The History and Activity of the United Kingdom in Antarctica.  Available at:  https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/activity_of_UK_in_antarctica.php.  Accessed January 29, 2018.

Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty.  The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty.  Available at:    http://www.ats.aq/e/ep.htm.  Accessed January 29, 2018.

The Bald Eagle is our nation’s symbol.  But Benjamin Franklin didn’t like it.  Or so he wrote to his daughter, Sally Bache, in a letter on January 26, 1784.

Designing the national seal for the newly formed United States of America was a serious concern.  So serious that a committee to create the design was formed on July 4, 1776, on the heels of passage of the Declaration of Independence.  The committee had three members—Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin.  Each of them offered a design that featured a classical theme—Moses standing by the shore (Franklin), the children of Israel in the wilderness (Jefferson), and the “Judgement of Hercules” (Adams).  Despite agreeing on the Declaration of Independence, they gave up on designing the great seal.  Two later congressional committees, in 1780 and 1782, also failed to agree on what the seal should look like.

After the failure of the third committee, the Secretary of Congress, Charles Thompson, took up the challenge.  He submitted a suggestion for the design, without drawing it, that featured an “American Eagle” as the centerpiece of the front side of the Seal.  The design concept was approved in June, but only drawn and struck in September, 1782.  The eagle was drawn as a Bald Eagle, and the rest is history.  The Great Seal of the United States has not been altered since.

But that didn’t mean Benjamin Franklin had to like the idea that a Bald Eagle was to be our national symbol (read more about Franklin here).  In his letter to his daughter, Franklin first denounced the character of the Bald Eagle:

“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.”

He then goes on to nominate a better bird for the honor—the Wild Turkey:

“For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America… He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”

Regardless of which bird you prefer—Bald Eagle or Wild Turkey—we can be proud of the role that conservation has played in making both abundant for us today.  Both species were nearly extinct in 1900, from overhunting and habitat loss.  We passed laws to protect all birds from commercial hunting in the early 1900s (read about theLacey Act here).  We began restoring Wild Turkey habitat in the 1930s and then reintroduced birds around the country from remnant West Virginia populations.  And in the 1970s, we passed laws that removed DDT and other pesticides that impacted Bald Eagle reproduction .  Today, the Bald Eagle is off the endangered species list, but still protected as our national symbol.  The Wild Turkey is so abundant that carefully regulated hunting seasons now occur throughout the U.S.

References:

Chandler, Adam.  2014.  A Nation of Turkeys:  Ben Franklin’s Crusade Against the Bald Eagle.  The Atlantic, January 26, 2014.  Available at:  https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/nation-turkeys-ben-franklins-crusade-against-bald-eagle/357393/.  Accessed January 28, 2018.

GreatSeal.com. First Great Seal Committee – July-August 1776.  Available at:  http://greatseal.com/committees/firstcomm/index.html.  Accessed January 28, 2018.

Stamp, Jimmy.  2013.  American Myths:  Benjamin Franklin’s Turkey and the Presidential Seal.  Smithsonian, January 25, 2013.  Available at:  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/american-myths-benjamin-franklins-turkey-and-the-presidential-seal-6623414/.  Accessed January 28, 2018.

People who love the outdoors and the prospect of being close to nature often have a strained relationship with polite society and cities.  The modern patron saint of that feeling might well be Edward Abbey, a writer and anarchist who loved the desert and hated what the modern world was doing to it. He described himself this way:

“I have been called a curmudgeon, which my obsolescent dictionary defines as a ‘surly, ill-mannered, bad-tempered fellow’. Nowadays, curmudgeon is likely to refer to anyone who hates hypocrisy, cant, sham, dogmatic ideologies, and has the nerve to point out unpleasant facts and takes the trouble to impale these sins on the skewer of humor and roast them over the fires of fact, common sense, and native intelligence. In this nation of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, it then becomes an honor to be labeled curmudgeon.”

 Edward Abbey was born in Indiana, Pennsylvania, on January 29, 1927.  He was raised to think for himself—and he took to that education fully.  “Freedom,” he said, “begins between the ears.” He left home at the age of 17, hitchhiking across the country to the desert Southwest, which would be his love and home for most of his life.  Before then, however, he was drafted into the Army and spent two years in Italy as a military policeman—an experience that turned him into an anarchist.  He returned to the U.S. and received two degrees from the University of New Mexico.

He then embarked on a 15-year career as a part-time employee in various national parks and monuments, immersing himself in the desert environment that obsessed him.  He began writing, first novels, but then, in 1968, the book that first made him famous, Desert Solitaire.  Desert Solitaire is a rambling defense of the qualities of the desert, set in what is now Arches National Park (learn more about Arches here) , and the need to let it be what it is—just desert, not developed into cities, not irrigated into farmland, but just desert.  He wrote, “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.”

But it was another book, published in 1975, that earned him a place as a hero to some and a menace to others. His novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang, described the fictional exploits of environmental extremists who used disruptive strategies to stop development—the idea of tossing a wrench into the gears.  I doubt that Abbey himself ever engaged in direct sabotage of any development—he was too focused on his own life and experiences—but the idea of guerilla warfare in support of the environment was adopted by some groups, with Edward Abbey as their spiritual guide.

Abbey was the true anti-hero.  He was married and divorced four times, a known philanderer.  He drank excessively and threw his beer cans out the truck window because the highway had already destroyed the lands through which it passed.  He took his television outside and shot it.  Trying to pin down his philosophy was as difficult as finding standing water in the desert, a purposeful complexity.  “What do I believe in?” he wrote.  “I believe in sun.  In rock.  In the dogma of the sun and the doctrine of the rock.  I believe in blood, fire, woman, rivers, eagles, storm, drums, flutes, banjos, and broom-tailed horses….”

And when the end came, on March 14, 1989, he finished things the way he wanted.  As agreed earlier, friends wrapped him in a sleeping bag and drove him out into the desert, iced down for the journey.  They buried him, un-embalmed, at an unknown and unmarked site in the desert—an illegal act—completing his desire to become fertilizer for whatever the desert wished to grow from his remains.

References:

Encyclopedia Brittanica.  Edward Abbey, American Author.  Available at:  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Abbey.  Accessed January 29, 2018.

Harden, Blaine.  2002.  A Friend, Not a Role Model; Remembering Edward Abbey, Who Loved Words, Women, Beer and the Desert.  The New York Times, April 29, 2002.  Available at:  http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/29/books/friend-not-role-model-remembering-edward-abbey-who-loved-words-women-beer-desert.html.  Accessed January 29, 2018.

Leonard, Brendan.  2016.  The 23 Best Ed Abbey Quotes.  Adventure Journal, November 1, 2016.  Available at:  https://www.adventure-journal.com/2016/11/23-best-ed-abbey-quotes/.  Accessed January 29, 2018.

Wilderness Connect.  Edward Abbey:  Freedom Begins Between the Ears.  Available at:  http://www.wilderness.net/NWPS/Abbey.  Accessed January 29, 2018.

Today millions of young boys and girls are members of scouting organizations.  It all began with the publication of the book, Scouting for Boys, by Lord Robert Baden-Powell, on January 24, 1908.

Baden-Powell was born in London on February 22, 1857.  He spent much of his early life playing in the woods around his home, learning about nature and what was then called wood-craft—how to make-do with the materials that nature provided and how to sustain life away from industrialized society. He wrote that “… in my spare time as a schoolboy I did a good lot of scouting in the woods in the way of snaring rabbits and cooking them, observing birds and tracking animals, and so on.”

Baden-Powell left school and joined the British army, serving in India and South Africa for 34 years.  His time in South Africa added to his understanding of nature and survival in the wilderness, while actually performing duties as a military scout. He became famous for his defense of his garrison and the town of Mafeking in the Second Boer War during a 217-day siege over 1899-1900.  He returned to England and retired as a Major-General in 1910, a much decorated and renowned war hero.

As his career progressed, he put his extensive knowledge of wood-craft and scouting to work in a series of books.  In 1884, he published his first book, called Reconnaissance and Scouting, intended to instruct soldiers and other adults in essential military skills. He published 32 books in all, but the one that started a worldwide phenomenon was Scouting  for Boys, that appeared on January 24, 1908.

Scouting for Boys translated Baden-Powell’s knowledge into lessons designed to give boys a taste of adventure and lots of advice for living honorable and satisfying lives.  He wrote:  “I knew that every true red-blooded boy is keen for adventure and open-air life, and so I wrote this book to show you how it could be done even in a civilized country like England.”  The book was an instant success.  It taught boys how to interact with nature:

“I have said the ‘hunting’ or ‘going after big game is one of the best things in scouting’. I did not say shooting or killing the game was the best part; for as you get to study animals you get to like them more and more, and you will soon find that you don’t want to kill them for the mere sake of killing.”

It also taught lessons for self-improvement:

“A boy who is accustomed to sleep with his window shut will probably suffer, like many a tenderfoot has done, by catching cold and rheumatism when he first tries sleeping out. The thing is always to sleep with your windows open, summer and winter, and you will never catch cold… A soft bed and too many blankets make a boy dream bad dreams, which weakens him.”

“No boy ever began smoking because he liked it but because he thought it made him look like a grown-up man. As a matter of fact it generally makes him look a little ass.”

            Baden-Powell ran an experimental adventure camp for boys in 1907, and the idea caught on.  Only two years later, in 1909, he held the first National Scout Rally drawing 11,000 boys.  Along with his sister, Agnes, he started a similar group for girls, known in England as Girl Guides.  Since then, of course, the organization has gone world-wide.  In the U.S. alone, about 2.4 million boys and 1.8 million girls participate in Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, respectively.  Although participation has fallen over the past decade, scouting remains a dominant youth activity in American culture.

And why not?  As Robert Baden-Powell said, “Life without adventure would be deadly dull.”

References:

Biography online.  Lord Baden-Powell Biography.  Available at:  https://www.biographyonline.net/humanitarian/baden-powell.html.  Accessed January 24, 2018.

Rohrer, Finlo.  2007.  What would Baden-Powell do?  BBC News, 27July 2007.  Available at:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6918066.stm.  Accessed January 24, 2018.

Scouts.  Lord Baden-Powell.  Available at:  http://scouts.org.uk/about-us/heritage/lord-baden-powell/.  Accessed January 24, 2018.

The Guardian.  2013.  Baden-Powell’s introduction to Scouting for Boys.  Available at:  https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jul/31/baden-powell-scouts-for-boys.  Accessed January 24, 2018.

Sweden became the first country to regulate the use of chloroflourocarbons (CFCs) when it banned their use in aerosols on January 23, 1978.  Other countries followed, including the U.S., leading to the eventual worldwide ban known as the Montreal Protocol.

Like so many chemicals produced after World War II, CFCs seemed like miracle compounds.  They were cheap and easy to make, and were inert, non-toxic and non-flammable.  They were widely used as propellants in aerosol spray cans, as plastic foams sprayed for insulation, as solvents for cleaning electrical components, and as refrigerants in air conditioning units for buildings and vehicles.  Their use grew rapidly throughout the post-war era of booming prosperity.

But another outcome of post-war technology proved their undoing.  By the 1970s, scientists developed remote sensing tools that could detect chemicals in the stratosphere. Scientists discovered that various forms of CFCs were present at high altitudes and that the compound’s presence reduced ozone concentrations.  Lower ozone concentrations increased UV radiation reaching the earth, resulting in increased incidence of skin cancer and cataracts in humans.  Even more important, CFCs remained in the atmosphere for up to a century before degrading.

These worrying findings began a series of decisions by nations around the world, starting with Sweden in January, 1978.  Canada, Norway and Denmark quickly enacted their own bans. The U.S. acted to regulate “non-essential” uses of CFCs in March, 1978, to be implemented that December.  Other European nations followed suit, and in 1980, the European Economic Community (now the EU) placed limits of CFC production and use.

Ongoing studies showed that ozone losses in the stratosphere were worse than thought and that an “ozone hole” had developed over the Antarctic.  As worldwide concern over ozone depletion grew, the world agreed to a strategy for controlling what are now called ODS—ozone-depleting substances.  The Montreal Protocol, as it is known, came into force on January 1, 1989.

Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary-General, said, “Perhaps the single most successful international environmental agreement to date has been the Montreal Protocol.”  In a report in 2023, the UN estimated that 99% of ozone-depleting chemicals have been eliminated from the earth. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency cited in 2017 that 45 million cases of cataracts and 280 million cases of skin cancer have been avoided—and that 1.6 million American lives have been saved because of the regulation of ODS.  In total, the regulation of these chemical compounds has produced $4.2 trillion in societal health benefits in the United States.  The ozone hole is declining regularly, and EPA estimates that ozone levels in the atmosphere will return to pre-1980 levels by 2040 in most places, but it will take another 20 years for ozone to return fully to the Arctic and Antarctic atmospheres..

References:

Byrd, Deborah.  2015.  This date in science:  Sweden goes first to ban aerosol sprays.  EarthSky, January 23, 2015.  Available at:  http://earthsky.org/earth/this-date-in-science-sweden-goes-first-to-ban-aerosol-sprays.  Accessed January 23, 2018.

Diaz, Jaclyn. 2023. The ozone layer is on track to recover in the coming decades, the United Nations says. NPR, Januiary 10, 2023. Available at: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/10/1147977166/ozone-layer-recovery-united-nations-report. Accessed January 10, 2023.

Morrisette, Peter M.  1989.  The Evolution of Policy Responses to Stratospheric Ozone Depletion.  Natural Resources Journal 29:793-820.  Available at: http://www.ciesin.org/docs/003-006/003-006.html.  Accessed January 23, 2018.

US Environmental Protection Agency.  2017.  Stratospheric Ozone Protection—30 Years of Progress and Achievements.  Available at:  https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-11/documents/mp30_report_final_12.pdf.  Accessed January 23, 2018.

The first Gulf War lasted for just a few weeks in early 1991, as American military forces overwhelmed Iraqi troops that had invaded Kuwait.  But, as the Iraq army was driven out of Kuwait, they committed unforgivable large-scale environmental sabotage—they set the Kuwaiti oil fields on fire.

Beginning on January 22, 1991, retreating Iraqi forces set oil wells on fire in Kuwait.  By the time they were done, more than 700 oil wells were ablaze, burning an estimated 6 million barrels (250 million gallons) of oil per day—more than 40 billion gallons of oil were released in total.  A few days later, on January 25, Iraqi forces also sabotaged Kuwait’s coastal oil facilities, causing the release of 8 million barrels (336 million gallons) into the Persian Gulf.

Stopping the fire was a Herculean effort.  Not only did the retreating army start the fires, they also placed land mines around many wells, assuring long delays before firefighters could approach the fires.  Most of the fires were put out in an ingenious way—repairing the oil pipelines that went from the wells to the sea and then pumping water in reverse to the wells so that it could be used to douse the fires.  Other fires were put out by regular oil firefighting companies, like that of the famous Red Adair. The last fires were extinguished in November, 1991, ten months after the conflagration began.

And a conflagration it was.  The entire region was engulfed in black smoke.  Average temperatures fell by 10 degrees Centigrade because sunlight could not penetrate the smoke cloud.  “Black rain” fell for months, as far away as Turkey, Syria and Afghanistan. An estimated 5% of the land surface of Kuwait was covered by thick deposits of oil and soot, forming an asphalt-like layer (termed “tarcrete”) which remains today.  More than 200 oil lakes accumulated spilled oil, some as deep as six feet.  In the Persian Gulf itself, sea birds perished in the thousands, oil coated miles of seashore, and oil slicks developed that were many miles in area.  Humans immediately experienced respiratory distress, and cases of oil-related cancer continued to develop in succeeding years.

A U.S. diplomatic staff member described flying over the site:

“As we approached the fields, even through the thick smoke, you could see the huge tongues of fires burning out of the wells. The starkness of that image became even clearer as we flew between clouds and could see the ground clearly. It looked like the earth had opened up and volcanoes had sprung up everywhere. It was incredible; I have never seen nor hope to see again such horror.”

The cost of the environmental cleanup has been estimated at $40 billion. Time Magazine in 2010 rated the Kuwati oil fires as the third worst environmental disaster in history (exceeded only by Chernobyl and Bhopal).

References:

Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.  Towering Infernos – The Kuwait Oil Fires.  Available at:  http://adst.org/2016/04/towering-infernos-the-kuwait-oil-fires/#.WmZZtqinFRY.  Accessed January 22, 2018.

Chilcote, Ryan.  2003.  Kuwait still recovering from Gulf War fires.  CNN world.  Available at:  http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/01/03/sproject.irq.kuwait.oil.fires/.  Accessed January 22, 2018.

Counterspill.  Gulf War Oil Disaster.  Available at:  http://www.counterspill.org/disaster/gulf-war-oil-disaster.  Accessed January 23, 2018.

McLaren, Duncan, and Ian Willmore.  2003.  The environmental damage of war in Iraq.  The Guardian, 18 Jan 2003.  Available at:  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jan/19/iraq5.  Accessed January 22, 2018.

PBS.  Gulf War Curriculum Guide.  PBS, Beyond Broadcast Curriculum Guide.  Available at: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/teach/gulfguide/gwtimeline.html.  Accessed January 22, 2018.

The Wilderness Society, America’s largest and foremost advocate for preserving wilderness, was founded on January 21, 1935.  Since then, The Wilderness Society has grown to being the voice for “1 million wilderness supporters.”

The Wilderness Society was the dream of Bob Marshall (learn more), who was the head of recreation and lands for the U.S. Forest Service in the mid-1930s.  He had prepared a draft of his ideas for such an organization and had shared it with several colleagues.  In October, 1934, Marshall and three friends were driving to a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in Tennessee when the talk of the new society grew intense.  They pulled to the roadside and discussed Marshall’s draft in detail, vowing to make this new group happen.

They gathered four more supporters, including Aldo Leopold, and met at Washington’s famous Cosmos Club in January, 1935, to finalize their plans.  After two days of intense discussion, they all agreed, on January 21, to the structure and purpose of the new organization, to be called The Wilderness Society.  They declared:  “All we desire to save from invasion is that extremely minor fraction of outdoor America which yet remains free from mechanical sights and sounds and smells.” Bob Marshall, the original champion of the group, died unexpectedly in 1938 at the young age of 38, but he had prepared well to keep his dream alive—Marshall was a wealthy bachelor, and he left a sizable portion of his estate to support the new society.

Since then, the impact of The Wilderness Society on American conservation has been extraordinary.  They fought continuously for new parks that would include “primitive areas,” long before the concept of wilderness had been codified.  The group’s first and most important victory was passage of The Wilderness Act in 1964 (read more), which established definitions of wilderness and a mechanism for declaring and  managing wilderness areas regardless of which federal agency had ownership of the lands and water. “A wilderness,” the Act states, “in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”  As part of the act’s passage, 54 areas totaling 9.1 million acres were designated as wilderness

Since then, we have never stopped adding more areas.  The U.S. has protected 109 million acres of wilderness—5% of the U.S. land surface.  The total area is dispersed among 765 separate areas in 44 states and Puerto Rico.  The areas are managed by four U.S. land management agencies, including the National Park Service, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management.

The U.S. has the largest national wilderness program in the world, holding about one-third of the entire globe’s designated wilderness.  The top five countries in the world for wilderness area are, in order, the U.S., Canada, Botswana, Mongolia and Australia.

References:

Aplet, Greg, and Jerry Greenberg.  1996.  The Wilderness Society – Advocating for Wilderness in Changing Times.  International Journal of Wilderness 2(3):31-33.  Available at:  http://www.wilderness.net/library/documents/aplet.pdf.  Accessed January 18, 2018.

Environment & Society Portal.  The Wilderness Society founded.  Available at:  http://www.environmentandsociety.org/tools/keywords/wilderness-society-founded.  Accessed January 18, 2018.

The Wilderness Society,  2017.  For Our Wild, The Wilderness Society’s 2016 Annual Report.  Available at:  https://wilderness.org/sites/default/files/TWS_AR_2016_LowResSingles_0.pdf.  Accessed January 18, 2018.

Who are the comedic stars of the bird world?  Penguins, of course!  Stars of the big screens, they wear tuxedos, wobble when they walk, and their feathers stick out of their heads like clowns.  Today is a good day to think about penguins—Penguin Appreciation Day!

The origin of Penguin Appreciation Day is lost in history, but that hasn’t slowed down the message:  Penguins may be adorable but they are also fascinating examples of adaptation to harsh environments.  So, here’s some information to help you appreciate them more.

All penguins live in the southern hemisphere.  Galapagos Penguins push that definition, living basically on the Equator.  At the tip of the globe, Emperor Penguins live deep in Antarctica, braving temperatures that can fall as low as -40 degrees Centigrade.   Penguins live everywhere in between these extremes and on all the continents of the southern oceans, including South America, Africa and Australia.

The number of penguin species is up for debate among scientists, but 16-19 species is the usual range, distributed among 6 genera.  As more DNA evidence comes in, some species get combined, others get split apart.   At the moment, a big question is whether the Royal Penguin is just a differently colored Macaroni Penguin.  And perhaps the Rockhopper Penguin is actually two or more species.

The largest is the Emperor Penguin, checking in at more than 40 inches tall and weighing as much as 80 pounds.  At the opposite end is the Little Penguin (also known as the Fairy Penguin), weighing less than 3 pounds and standing a diminutive 13 inches tall.

The most common penguin is the Macaroni species, distributed on islands throughout the southern oceans.  More than 11 million Macaroni Penguins exist.  The least common is the Galapagos Penguin—only a few thousand exist, and they are endangered, just as most other species are that live in the Galapagos Archipelago.

Today, all penguins are protected by the Antarctic Treaty, first signed in 1959.   The treaty prohibits harming penguins in any way, including hunting or collecting eggs.  Collection for scientific or conservation purposes is allowed only by special permit(learn more about the treaty here).

Penguins are fundamentally aquatic animals.  They spend most of their time in the water, feeding on invertebrates and small fish.  They generally stay near the surface, where their food also lives.  Their dives are typically short, no more than a minute or two. Penguins come ashore to molt and to reproduce, nesting on land or ice, often in large colonies.

They are expert swimmers, using their adapted wings as flippers to “fly” through the water. Adele Penguins are the sprinters of the clan, reaching speeds of 20 miles per hour.  Unlike most birds, which have hollow bones that make flying easier, penguins have solid bones, which reduce their buoyancy and make diving easier.

But most of all, they are just plain cute!

References:

Penguinworld (website).  Available at:  http://www.penguinworld.com/index.php.  Accessed January 19, 2017.

SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment.  Animal information:  Penguin.  Available at:  https://seaworld.org/en/animal-info/animal-infobooks/penguin.  Accessed January 19, 2017.

Acadia National Park, on the Maine coast, was established on January 19, 1929.  The park, which today covers more than 47,000 acres, covers a substantial portion of Mount Desert Island and a number of islands in the surrounding region.  The park hosted more than 3.3 million visitors in 2017, placing it in the top 10% of all National Park Service units.

Acadia began as Sieur de Monts National Monument, dedicated in 1916, becoming the first national park unit on the Atlantic seaboard.  Unlike many national parks that have always been property owned by the federal government, Acadia started out as private lands.  The park owes its existence to the persistent efforts of George B. Dorr, who fostered the creation, expansion and maintenance of the park for decades.

George Dorr was born to a wealthy Boston family in 1853.  Like many northeasterners at the time, the family vacationed on Mount Desert Island.  The striking beauty of the area had been made famous by the most well-known landscape painters, including Thomas Cole and Frederic Church, attracting big-city residents seeking a peaceful refuge from their hectic lives.  The rounded mountains, carved by the last glaciation, are interspersed with bare rock surfaces and gnarled evergreens.  Native Abnaki Indians called the island “Pemetic,” meaning sloping land.  When French explorer Champlain ran aground in the area in the early 1600s, he called the island “Isles des Monts Desert,” or Island of Barren Mountains.  George Dorr appreciated its singular beauty, as he wrote in 1916:

“There is nothing like it elsewhere on the continent. A noble mass of ancient granite that once bore up a dominating Alpine height on its broad shoulders has been laid bare by time immeasurable and carved into forms of bold and striking beauty by recent ice-sheet grinding. This granite mass, surrounded broadly by the ocean as the coast has sunk, constitutes with its ice-worn peaks and gorges and intervening lakes the national monument.”

Dorr fell in love with the island on childhood vacations and moved there permanently as a young man.  Wealthy and a lover of nature, he never married—dedicating his life instead to the preservation of the land that obsessed him.  Fearing that the island would be overtaken by commercial lumbering and unbridled tourism, he formed a land conservancy in 1913 that bought 6,000 acres.  He donated the land to the federal government, and on July 8, 1916, Sieur de Monts National Monument was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.  A few years later—spurred by the incessant lobbying of George Dorr—Congress and President Wilson re-designated the monument as Lafayette National Park.  Then, on January 19, 1929, the park was renamed Acadia.  Dorr was made superintendent of the park and worked unceasingly for its benefit until his death in 1944.

Over time, the park has expanded from the original 6,000 acres to its current size of nearly 48,000 acres, all through donations and purchases of private lands.  The park makes extensive use of conservation easements, by which private landowners guarantee that their lands will remain wild and natural.  These easements cover dozens of islands, large and small in the surrounding waters of the Atlantic Ocean, and continue to increase the national treasure of the Acadia region.

References:

Dorr, George B.  1916.  The Sieur de Monts National Monument.  US Government Printing Office.  Available at:  http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1089&context=mainehistory.  Accessed January 18, 2017.

Hartford, George A.  Mount Desert Island, Maine.  Available at:  http://www.acadiamagic.com/MountDesert.html.  Accessed January 18, 2017.

National Park Service.  George B. Dorr.  Available at:  https://www.nps.gov/people/george-b-dorr.htm.  Accessed January 18, 2017.

National Park Service.  History of Acadia.  Available at:  https://www.nps.gov/acad/learn/historyculture/history-of-acadia.htm.  Accessed January 18, 2017.