SAN FRANCISCO — Dr. Edgar Wayburn, 103, a five-term president of the Sierra Club who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for working to preserve vast tracts of wilderness in the U.S., has died.
The Sierra Club says Wayburn died Friday at his home in San Francisco, surrounded by family.
Wayburn was a physician who conducted his conservation work largely in his spare time.
Wayburn helped win passage of the 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which created millions of acres of national parkland, almost doubling the system’s land.
President Bill Clinton awarded Wayburn the Medal of Freedom in 1999, saying he had saved more wilderness than any person alive.
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