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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Dr. Edgar Wayburn
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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Dr. Edgar Wayburn
- Born in Macon, GA in 1906.
- Graduated from the University of Georgia in 1926.
- Graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1930
- Served in the U.S. Air Force from 1942 to 1946.
- Successfully fought to increase the size of Mount Tamalpais in 1948.
- Married to author Peggy Wayburn in 1947.
- Helped rally support for Point Reyes National Seashore in 1962.
- President of the Sierra Club from 1961-1964 and then again from 1967-1969.
- Golden Gate National Recreational Area is established in 1972.
- Ran his own medical practice from 1933-1985.
- Taught at Stanford Medical School and the University of California at San Francisco from 1934-1975.
- Awarded the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism in 1995.
- Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999.
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi
Edgar Wayburn Turns 90
September 12, 1996
Dr. Edgar Wayburn, legendary champion of the environment and human health, celebrates his 90th birthday on September 17. His ninety years represent a lifetime of commitment to the causes of protecting the environment and promoting human health throughout the world. Dr. Wayburn is an example to all of us.
For more than five decades, Dr. Wayburn was a dedicated physician who worked to improve the human condition, as well as the environmental condition of our planet. His interest in the environment stemmed from his work as a physician who recognized the effects of a degraded environment on human health. In addition to the many public lands issues that Dr. Wayburn has championed, he has also fought for clean air and a curb on cigarette smoking long before the general public became educated about the dangers. The world we live in today is better because of the efforts of Dr. Wayburn.
To Peggy Wayburn, our special thanks for her contribution to these many challenges and successes; we appreciate the long hours, hard work and special role Peggy has played on the Wayburn Family Team.
Dr. Wayburn and his wife Peggy were captured by the unique beauty of the Alaska landscape on their first visit almost thirty years ago. That first visit was followed by hundreds more and the successful campaign to create the Alaska Lands Act, the largest public lands bill in the history of the Congress. Today, 104 million acres remain wild largely because of that first visit made to Alaska by the Wayburns.
In California, Dr. Wayburn fought to preserve one of America's premier ancient forests, Redwood national Park. He fought alongside Congressman Phillip Burton to achieve this important goal which resulted in the addition of 58,000 acres to the Park in 1978. Today, these redwood giants have a permanent home in their coastal preserve which has also become a World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve.
Closer to home, in San Francisco, Dr. Wayburn demonstrated the same outstanding leadership in the effort to preserve at the national level what we now call the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA). These early and insightful efforts led to the now-famous collaboration with Amy Meyer and Phillip Burton in establishing the almost-continuous greenbelt from Pt. Reyes National Seashore south along the Pacific coast to Sweeney Ridge.
The notion of an urban national park was an unfamiliar concept to the National Park Service and to the Congress in the late 1960s. Through Dr. Wayburn's endeavors and the lasting partnership with Amy, along with the commitment of the local community, environmentalists and Phillip Burton, the GGNRA found a protected home as a unit of the national park system in 1972.
Today, the GGNRA is the most visited park in the national system, with over 22 million visitors each year. The efforts of Dr. Wayburn, Amy Meyer, and many others in the San Francisco community, have also contributed to the success of the Presidio and the Presidio Trust legislation in Congress. The GGNRA stands as a monument, in the National Park system and in our community, to the important work and tenacity of citizen leaders who dream, who struggle and who see their dreams come true. It took only a small spark, but the flame will burn forever.
Throughout the world, Dr. Wayburn has initiated environmental missions on behalf of protecting forests, lands and waters in the name of preservation and in the name of Earth's future inhabitants. Our grandchildren will not know Dr. Wayburn, but his work will be known through the magnificent landscapes that abound because of his monumental efforts. Dr. Wayburn's selfless and tireless efforts, seen wherever he touched our Earth, will stand as a lasting monument to his vision and to his achievement.
Dr. Wayburn has been the recipient of several awards to honor his accomplishments in the fields of environment and health: the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism from Johns Hopkins University, election to Global 500 of the U.N. Environmental Program, the Starker Leopold Award by the Nature Conservancy and the John Muir Award by the Sierra Club.
Thank you, Dr. Wayburn and Peggy, for giving your lives to the important causes that have made this a better world for so many people. You will always be remembered by your friends in San Francisco.
September 17, 2004
The Sierra Club is pausing today to celebrate the birthday of one of America's legendary wilderness champions. Dr. Edgar Wayburn, a tenacious and tireless leader of the Sierra Club since the 1940s and perhaps the least-known yet most successful defender of America's natural heritage, turns 98 today.
Dr. Wayburn is one of these amazing conservation heroes who has helped safeguard some of the very best of wild America. He, along with his late wife Peggy, has been involved in some of the key battles to protect wild places so that future generations - our children and grandchildren - can explore and enjoy them.
Dr. Edgar Wayburn played a central role in the establishment of Redwoods National Park. Wayburn is a doctor by training but an ardent conservationist by heart. He may be the least-known yet most successful defender of America's natural heritage. He played a central role in the establishment of Redwoods National Park and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and in the passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. For his visionary achievements, he was honored with the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism in 1995.
Wayburn was the recipient of the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999. Upon presenting the award, President Clinton said, "Edgar Wayburn has worked to preserve the most breath-taking examples of the American landscape. In fact, over the course of more than a half-century, both as President of the Sierra Club and as a private citizen, he has saved more of our wilderness than any person alive."
In an editorial commending this award, the Los Angeles Times wrote, "The White House has made a well-informed choice in selecting Wayburn, 92, as a recipient next Wednesday of the Medal of Freedom , the nation's highest civilian honor. 'We should pass on to future generations the opportunity to enjoy these places and not have them transformed into ordinary places,' Wayburn said when he was notified of the honor. That legacy is more expansive today because of the quiet work of this committed man."
This Sunday night, Wayburn will be honored at a 40th Anniversary Gala Celebration as the recipient of the first-ever Howard C. Zahniser Lifetime Achievement Award, given to someone whose life of achievement in protecting wilderness most closely parallels those of the person principally responsible for the Wilderness Act.
Wayburn has served five times as the Sierra Club's elected President, and was named the Club's Honorary President in 1993. During a half-century of environmental achievements, Wayburn led and won campaigns to protect millions of acres of America's coasts, mountains, forests and tundra. Wayburn has left his mark in the following ways: - Establishing the nation's largest urban park, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Included in the park's 76,000-acre expanse are San Francisco's beaches, Alcatraz and the Presidio;
- Protecting over 100 million acres of Alaskan wild lands with the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which doubled the size of Denali National Park and created 10 new National Parks, including America's largest National Park, Wrangell-St. Elias. This victory, in 1980, doubled the size of America's National Park system;
- Creating Redwood National Park, and then doubling the park's size 10 years later;
- Increasing the acreage of California's Mount Tamalpais State Park from 870 to 6,300 acres. Mount Tamalpais is now among the state's 10 most-visited state parks;
- Establishing the Point Reyes National Seashore; and
- Establishing Wilderness areas throughout the American West.
Courtesy of the Sierra Club
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Medal History
