“We are engaged in a Tug-of-War. If we begin from the middle, the other side will surely win.”– Martin Litton, one of the founders of Committee for Green Foothills
Today the Committee for Green Foothills pays tribute to Martin Litton, one of Committee for Green Foothills’ founding board members and a true environmental hero. Martin became an activist at the age of 18 when he wrote the Los Angeles Times urging that Mono Lake should be preserved from massive diversions of water by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.The 185th person to raft down the Colorado River, Martin pioneered running the Colorado by rowing small wooden dories and created a successful commercial company called Grand Canyon Dories. He actively fought against dam building his entire life alongside other environmental heroes including David Brower and Edward Abbey.
Martin’s conservation efforts did not end with the river. He was an advocate for protecting California’s coast redwood and Sequoia forests. He successfully killed a resort proposal by Disney at Mineral King that would have entailed building a huge road through Sequoia National Park. Working with Sierra Club, Save the Redwoods, and the National Geographic Society, his article in Sunset Magazine, “The Redwood Country” rallied public support for the establishment of the Redwood National Park in 1968. He spoke out against logging of old growth Sequoias in our National Forests and took people up in his plane to show them the beauty of the ancient giants. He describes the sequoias as “holy as the sistine chapel.”
Martin was blessed with the exceptional ability to persuade. A prime example of this is when he and a group of fellow conservationists met with the US Reclamation Board’s Dave Wegner, a proponent for dams along the Colorado River. Martin and his colleagues would not accept this perspective, persuading Wegner to switch sides and become an advocate for the River. Another instance is in the 1960’s when Martin flew Governor Edmund “Pat” Brown over North Coast old-growth redwood forests. The Governor ordered to halt plans for a freeway through these ancient groves.
Martin lifetime of unswerving advocacy for rivers, forests, and natural beauty inspires us all to continue his work and motivate the next generations to carry on his legacy.
Rest in Peace: Martin Litton (1917-2014)
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