San Francisco - David Brower, who as leader of the Sierra Club championed a drive to save the Grand Canyon and was hailed by many as the conscience of the American environmental movement, has died of cancer aged 88, associates said.
The Green Party presidential candidate, Mr Ralph Nader, who stood with Brower on many issues, mourned the passing of "an indefatigable champion of every every worthwhile effort to protect the environment over the last seven decades. His death is a tremendous loss," Mr Nader said.
Brower twice served as executive director of the Sierra Club, the US's most influential environmental group. He also founded the Friends of the Earth organisation and the Earth Island Institute. He had been ill for some time. "Brower was the seminal environmental leader for our nation during the last half of the 20th century," Mr Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth.