Earth Day ’94 : A Greener Valley : Activists Reflect on Need for Recruits to the Cause

Protest marches to planning hearings. Word of mouth to WordPerfect. The environmental movement has changed since the first Earth Day 25 years ago, but the same issues of pollution, conservation and lack of education still drive San Fernando Valley activists.

For the Valley’s foremost activists, the passage of time has also created a new predicament: the need for fresh recruits to the cause.

The Times asked a few of these activists to share their concerns.

Sandy Wohlgemuth, conservation chair of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Audubon Society, Reseda resident.

For Wohlgemuth, improving the environment is an attitude problem.

The challenge began 25 years ago, when he took his family from Reseda to Yellowstone National Park. During a hike he discovered an unnatural site that would change his life: a beer can in the bottom of a crystal-clear pond.

“That sort of set the wheels in motion,” said Wohlgemuth, a retired pharmacist. “I just felt that this was kind of symbolic of the way a lot of people feel toward the environment.”

Wohlgemuth has been trying to change people’s attitudes ever since, most recently with the Los Angeles Chapter of the Audubon Society.

But the negative attitudes are still there, sometimes uglier than ever.

“Several weeks ago, some kids came in with axes and machetes and tore some informational signs on birds off their moorings at the Sepulveda Basin,” said Wohlgemuth. “They drew swastikas on the dirt and wrote, ‘We’ll be back.’ ”

Jill Swift, founder of the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force of the Sierra Club and founder of Friends of Caballero Canyon.

“For me, every day for the last 25 years has been Earth Day,” said Swift, who became an activist after a Sierra Club hike in the mountains 25 years ago. “If you get into it, it’s like a giant game.”

Swift’s opponents in this game are those who would spoil the air and water of the Santa Monica Mountains and the Sepulveda Basin.

As a new grandmother, the retired schoolteacher and Tarzana resident has a new concern: Who will play the game in the future to protect her grandson?

“The motivation for people to get involved has lessened,” said Swift, 65. “There is less free time. And everything has become more expensive in the environmental movement. It costs money to drive places, postage has gone up, and most environmental groups do not pay anything for being involved.”

But as long as there is Earth Day, Swift is optimistic that new recruits to the environmental movement can be harvested for decades to come.

“Earth Day stands as a symbol for young people to become educated, and old people, too, to take stock of where we are,” Swift said.

Jerry Daniel, chairman of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

If environmental activists in the Valley fear depleting ranks in the future, Daniel believes they need look no further than their next-door neighbor.

“Most of the people who are involved in the environmental movement have at one time or another gotten their start with a local homeowner group,” said Daniel, 58, who first became interested in the movement when he bought a hillside home in 1969.

As chairman of the conservancy, Daniel finds himself in constant contact with homeowners concerned about conserving open space and the rural environments of the Valley.

“It’s extremely important that we have open spaces,” Daniel said. “We’ve got to have that to maintain our community sanity.”

As the population continues to expand, Daniel added, more Valley residents seem to be aware of this need. “There has got to be some place for them to escape to, to get away from the urban sprawl and the concrete and asphalt everywhere.”

Since its formation in 1979, the conservancy has helped acquire close to 21,000 acres of open space in mountain areas in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

Earth Day, Daniel said, serves to continue this positive relationship between Valley homeowners and conservationists by creating a day when all people can celebrate their natural surroundings with a hike or other outdoor activity.

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