September 3 was the 53rd anniversary of the national Wilderness Act of 1964 whose primary author was Pennsylvania’s own Howard Zahniser from Tionesta, Forest County.  The Friends of Allegheny Wilderness helped celebrate by circulating this 1957 quote from Zahniser about wilderness protection--

“It is not for the sake of any privileged few that we are thus working so strenuously for wilderness preservation, but rather for all Americans. We feel that the privilege of a wilderness experience is something to which every American is entitled, including those who are not yet born.

“There is no person that we should like to see excluded.

“We are indeed trying to keep out buildings, roads, airplane landing fields, mechanical vehicles…and all the things that make the wilderness not the wilderness. That often makes it look as though we are trying to keep out people because these 'things' would all bring people.

“But, as we see it, they would not bring them to the wilderness because the wilderness would no longer be there for anyone.”

To learn more about Pennsylvania’s wilderness areas, visit the Friends of Allegheny Wilderness website and DCNR’s Wild & Natural Areas webpage.

For more information legendary conservation leaders in Pennsylvania, visit the PA Conservation Heritage website.

(Photo: Howard Zahniser.)

[Posted: Sept. 4, 2017]

9/11/2017