Environmental stalwart Stewart Udall celebrated in new documentary [View all]

Rachel Carson. David Brower. Aldo Leopold. These luminaries are often credited with igniting the modern environmental movement. Yet there’s another monumental figure, now sometimes overlooked, who spearheaded many of the movement’s most important ideas and initiatives: Stewart Udall.

A Westerner who fought what he called “the myth of superabundance,” and a prevailing attitude of growth for its own sake, Udall appealed for a new “land conscience” to conserve public lands already threatened by deforestation and exploitation. Washingtonians of a certain age may remember this conservation icon, a secretary of the interior through the 1960s, for establishing the North Cascades and Redwood national parks, among others, and for creating the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail, part of the massive National Trails System Act that now comprises a network of more than 86,000 miles of trails across the country.

Having entered public office as a Congressman representing Arizona, Udall was appointed Secretary of the Interior by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. He later served under President Lyndon Johnson until 1969.

Many of the landmark environmental laws that we now take for granted can be traced back to Udall’s leadership, making him, according to Seattle filmmaker John de Graaf, “one of the unsung heroes of 20th-century American history.”

https://crosscut.com/environment/2024/04/environmental-stalwart-stewart-udall-celebrated-new-documentary