Martin Litton, environmental activist and Grand Canyon river runner, died late last year at 97. He was a fierce and effective advocate for conservation in the American west for 80 years.
Litton was a staunch opponent of roads in wilderness areas and dams on the Colorado River. He was the spark behind the Sierra Club’s celebrated activism in the 1960s and 70s.
At a time when river-runners were switching to inflatable rubber rafts, he founded Grand Canyon Dories, which carried passengers in traditional wooden boats. In 2004, at age 87, he became the oldest person to row the length of Grand Canyon.
Litton has been lauded profusely, and I won’t list the battles he fought or recap all the posthumous praise here. For that, go online.
But I do want to pass along some statements he made over the years that are revealing of his character and influence.
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People always tell me not to be extreme. “Be reasonable,” they say. But I never felt it did any good to be reasonable about anything in conservation. Because what you give away will never come back — ever.
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There are reasons why the river should be natural. One is the joy of running on a natural river, knowing you’re as close to nature as you can be. And the other is — whether we run it or not — nature has its right. It has a right to be here, untrammeled, unfettered.
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My feeling has always been, you can’t always win, but you can always try. And that we’re not as poor for the battles we’ve lost as for the ones we never fought. Win or lose, there’s a measure of victory in the endeavor.
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Man doesn’t have to screw everything up, and yet we go out of our way to do so. Greed is the motive, and it’s important to frustrate greed. We’re all greedy for one thing or another, but some of our desires are on a higher plane.
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We have no right to change this place. Do we have a right even to interrupt nature, even for a short time? To exterminate species? To kill the last fly? That’s not really our right. We’re the aberration on earth — humans are what’s wrong with the world.
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It was once said in a Sierra Club publication that the only way we’d ever accomplished anything was through compromise and accommodation. That’s exactly the opposite of the truth. The only way the Sierra Club ever won anything was by refusing to compromise. Grand Canyon dams, Redwood National Park — you can go right back through the whole list. When we compromised, we lost.
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We created something more beautiful by not defiling it. Saving it is an act of creation. We kept it undesecrated. We had made the case that the Grand Canyon was worth saving. The Grand Canyon is holy, you know. In the public’s eye, the Grand Canyon should not be fooled around with.
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The best way for people to understand how important it is to have the bottom of the Grand Canyon preserved, and have its aquatic life saved, and its riparian zone, with the beauty that’s there, kept, is perhaps to have them on that river and let them feel the way it stirs and rumbles and moves you along at its own pace, and to sense the kind of “life” the river has. It has a tremendous force and appeal that I can’t describe.
And the memory of the majesty of the Grand Canyon — what it does to their lives to be away from their routines for a while — even a short while. They begin to realize there’s something more in the world than their tiny little bit of it. The experience has somehow opened their eyes to something bigger and greater in life. They understand the whole universe better because of having been in the Grand Canyon and isolated from other things and having time to think.
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You’ve still got to try to save the earth, even though we know it’s hopeless — it’s too late. But that’s when great, heroic things are done — when you’re going down with the ship.
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Litton and a small group of contemporaries created the environmentalist movement from scratch. They made it effective because they didn’t pull their punches.
We can thank them for the Environmental Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Wilderness Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and many other important protections to our national parks and wildlands.
I’m a true believer. It’s clear to me that our survival depends on the preservation of the world we have left. But the reality is, I’m just a follower. I’m not cut out to be a take-charge activist.
Over the years, I’ve tried to pay attention, made my feelings known, and donated more than my share to a range of environmental organizations — Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, NRDC, Friends of the Earth, the Wilderness Society, and others that were passionate and effective, but stopped short of spiking trees.
A few years ago, I stopped donating.
Today’s environmental groups are bigger and richer than ever, but they lack the passion and dedication of Litton and his contemporaries. Greenpeace acts up on occasion. But for the most part, the organizations are preoccupied with fund-raising and deal-making. The fire has gone out.
In the 1960s, the Disney Corporation wanted to build a resort in Mineral King Valley in the Sierra wilderness. The U.S. Forest Service was on board. Litton opposed the plan (which was abandoned because of much vocal opposition) at a Sierra Club board meeting.
When board member Ansel Adams expressed surprise that the Mineral King project would involve constructing a highway through Sequoia National Park, Litton barked, “Look at a map! Pay some attention!”
Litton had a long and consequential life, and now he’s gone. He was a voice and a conscience that we really couldn’t afford to lose.
Martin Litton (1917-2014) by John Blaustein.
Mr. Write's Page 
Great post, thanks for introducing me to a wonderful man, a man honourable of the title Human.