National Wilderness Conference

The other recent event celebrating the 50th Anniversary of The Wilderness Act I participated in was National Wilderness Conference in Albuquerque, NM. Organized by all of the collective federal agencies that manage wilderness lands, this was a multi-day event featuring numerous presentations and distinguished speakers such as Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, author Terry Tempest Williams, and Senator Tom Udall. I was asked to be an "inspirational" closing keynote speaker, along with my old friend, Dave Foreman, author of Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching, and co-founder of Earth First!, the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and  most recently, the Rewilding Institute.  Dave Foreman, Environmentalist, and Robert Glenn Ketchum, Conservation Photographer, 2014

50th Anniversary of The Wilderness Act

As I mentioned previously, 2014-2015 is the 50th Anniversary of The Wilderness Act. There were many celebrations of this, and I took part in two of them which have some interesting links I have provided here for you to enjoy.  The Crary Gallery in Philadelphia is in Warren County, near to Tionesta township and the Allegheny River. Tionesta was the home of Howard Zahniser who wrote the original Wilderness Act, so the Crary Gallery honored him by having a large exhibit of photographers whose work would show the breadth of wilderness in North America. Among them, I am the only photographer whose work has ever actually helped to create wilderness, so the curator honored the special nature of those images and included brief text / stories with the display.

Happy 2015 from Robert Glenn Ketchum!

I want to wish everyone Health, Happiness, and Prosperity for the New Year.  2015 is the Chinese year of The Sheep!   My Xmas / New Year's present came early and in a big package - PRESIDENT OBAMA PROTECTED BRISTOL BAY FROM ALL OIL AND GAS LEASING. I hope to ultimately see Bristol Bay have status as a protected commercial fishing reserve, yet this is a GREAT first step! GRAND AS THIS IS, HOWEVER, IT DOES NOT END THE PLANNED DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUGE OPEN PIT MINE IN THE BRISTOL BAY HEADWATERS, SO PLEASE CONTINUE TO BE VOCAL AND SAY "NO" TO THE PEBBLE MINE.

Pebble Mine 2014 Year in Review: "And Then There Were Lawyers . . . ."

Pebble Mine 2014 Year in Review: "And Then There Were Lawyers . . . ."
by Joel Reynolds
Western Director and Senior attorney, NRDC, Los Angeles
published in Huffington Post, Posted: 01/05/2015 1:58 pm EST

When someday the story of the Pebble Mine is told, 2014 may be best remembered as the year when all that remained of the once formidable Pebble Partnership was a bunch of lawyers for hire. By the end of 2014, all of the mining giants and their funding - Mitsubishi, Anglo American, and Rio Tinto - were gone, leaving only Northern Dynasty Minerals to keep the reckless vision of the Pebble Mine alive. The Partnership's new CEO is a lawyer from the Washington, D.C. law firm of Steptoe and Johnson, and mining activities have ground to a halt.