Friends Of Allegheny Wilderness Celebrate Howard Zahniser And The 60th Anniversary Of The Federal Wilderness Act

The Friends of Allegheny Wilderness celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Federal Wilderness Act that established the National Wilderness Preservation System with this remembrance of Howard Zahniser, the Forest County native instrumental in pushing for its enactment--

As many of you already know, 2024 is the 60th anniversary year of the landmark Wilderness Act of 1964, which established America's National Wilderness Preservation System. We are now less than one month away from that historic date of September 3rd [when the Act became law].

Originally totaling nine million acres of protected wilderness with the passage of the Wilderness Act, the Wilderness System has now grown to more than 111 million acres nationwide, including two designated wilderness areas right here in the Allegheny National Forest.

Tionesta, Pennsylvania native Howard Zahniser (ZON-i-ser) of The Wilderness Society was the primary author of the Wilderness Act and its chief advocate in the U.S. Congress. Here is how Zahniser ("Zahnie" to his friends and colleagues) so eloquently defined wilderness for the purposes of the Wilderness Act:

"A wilderness, 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."

Twenty-three years ago today, on August 13th, 2001, Friends of Allegheny Wilderness, the Forest County Historical Society, The Wilderness Society, and others, established a permanent roadside historical marker with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission honoring Zahnie just north of Tionesta on U.S. Route 62, along his beloved National Wild and Scenic Allegheny River and two of the Allegheny Islands Wilderness wilderness islands.

Attached please find a fun and interesting one-hour documentary of that fine sunny day in August of 2001 dedicated to local-boy-done-good Howard Zahniser and his enduring work to permanently protect from all forms of development America's wilderness everywhere!

[Zahniser died on May 5, 1964, a few months before the Wilderness Act became law.]

Click Here to watch the video.

Visit the Friends of Allegheny Wilderness website to learn more about Zahniser, protecting wilderness in Pennsylvania and the Allegheny National Forest.

[Posted: August 14, 2024]  PA Environment Digest