Howard Zahniser

Howard Clinton Zahniser (February 25, 1906 – May 5, 1964) was an American environmental activist. For nearly 20 years, he helped lead The Wilderness Society, as executive secretary, executive director, and editor of The Living Wilderness, from 1945 to 1964. Zahniser is noted for being the primary author of the Wilderness Act of 1964.

Zahniser was born in Franklin, Pennsylvania, and grew up in nearby Tionesta along the banks of the Allegheny River close to the Allegheny National Forest. He attended college at Greenville College in Greenville, Illinois, where he graduated with a B.A. degree in English in 1928.

Zahniser began his career on the staff of the United States Bureau of Biological Survey (1930) (now part of the US Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of Interior).

He also became active in private efforts to conserve undeveloped areas. After The Wilderness Society was founded, Zahniser was hired as executive secretary and later worked as executive director. He served as editor of The Living Wilderness, from 1945 through 1964.

The United States Bureau of Reclamation plans for a ten-dam, billion dollar Colorado River Storage Project began to arouse opposition in the early 1950s when it announced that one of the proposed dams would be at Echo Park, in the middle of Dinosaur National Monument. The controversy assumed major proportions, dominating conservation politics for years. David Brower, executive director of the Sierra Club, and Zahniser representing The Wilderness Society led an unprecedented nationwide campaign to preserve the free-flowing rivers and scenic canyons of the Green and Yampa rivers. They worried that damaging a national monument would be a bad precedent for attempts to preserve other wilderness areas.

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