Stewart Udall, one of the leading environmental voices of our time, has had a love affair with the land for most of his life. He will be 90 in January.

Udall calls himself "a troubled optimist" as he considers our nation's environmental future and the state of our national parks. The American people want to see public lands preserved and expanded, he says, but he feels the weak economy and future federal deficits will make that difficult.

In a recent interview at his home in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Udall recalled his introduction to the national parks as a boy, when he would go camping with his family. "I was a Depression kid in a Depression family, so you didn't have a lot of money to spend. ...We lived on the Colorado Plateau, which I've always believed is the most scenic area in the world, and that meant that my father believed in taking children to see it and talk about the national parks. ...The national parks were part of our culture. There was pride in the fact that the nation had so many national parks and the system was slowly growing."

Udall traces his interest in conservation to his early years in the town of his birth — St. Johns, Arizona, not far from the New Mexico border. For those who farmed and ranched and lived in St. Johns, water was the most precious natural resource and had to be used wisely. Udall's chores included milking the family cow, watering the garden, and gathering wood with his siblings for cooking and heating. His love of landscape was fostered by his view of the mountains south of St. Johns.

Udall earned undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Arizona and served as a gunner on a bomber in the Italian campaign of World War II. His father was a lawyer and county judge who later served on the Arizona Supreme Court. One of his brothers was Morris Udall, whose son Mark is a U.S. senator from Colorado. Stewart Udall's son Tom is a U.S. senator from New Mexico. "Mo" Udall served as an Arizona congressman for 30 years, replacing Stewart, who had been picked by President John F. Kennedy to be Interior Secretary.

As a congressman from Arizona, Stewart Udall had backed Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election — partly because he thought Kennedy, as a Catholic, was breaking a religious barrier in politics. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Udall could relate to Kennedy's challenge.

When Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Udall was retained in the Cabinet of President Lyndon B. Johnson. As Interior Secretary for eight years, he pushed to expand the national park system by creating four new national parks, six national monuments, and dozens of wildlife refuges and recreation areas.

1963 also saw publication of Udall's best-known book, The Quiet Crisis. Its call for "a world in which physical affluence and affluence of the spirit go hand in hand" is credited with helping launch the environmental movement. "Before I became Secretary of the Interior, conservation efforts were focused on building dams," Udall said. "That's what congressmen were interested in. ...The push for expansion really began in the 1960s. ... Our big project in the first four years was the Canyonlands National Park in Utah, which I still believe to be one of the finest areas and most imposing in the country. ...We enlarged Arches National Monument. Then we quadrupled the size of an area in southern Utah which is called Capitol Reef National Park. It became a very popular cause, and I can tell you that because members of Congress wanted to be a part of this. ...We now have over 100 million acres in the wilderness system, and that is part of the national park concept.

"A lot of people were involved. I'm not talking about what I did; I'm talking about what, with the help of administrations, with the help of members of the Congress, looms today as a period when the national park system was expanded to a greater degree than
ever before."

When a new park or wilderness area was proposed, Udall would look at the area and ask his Interior Department colleagues one question: Is it good for the country? He remembers flying over the future site of Canyonlands National Park with a man who proposed building a dam there. He didn't say anything to the man at the time, but when Udall returned to Washington, D.C., he laid the groundwork for turning the land into a national park.

The people Udall says he admires most are those who work to save what is best of the Earth, including its wild creatures and places. "Teddy Roosevelt was the one that invented the conservation movement. The word conservation did not appear, I'm told, in dictionaries in the 1880s and '90s, and the idea of conservation had to be born. ... Teddy Roosevelt used the bully pulpit, as he said, to say to people that our forests and our parks and our wilderness areas ought to be preserved, and he gave it that initial thrust."

Federal support for national parks has waxed and waned over the decades. Udall says it waned significantly during President George W. Bush's administration, which generally opposed the establishment of new national parks and the enlarging of wilderness areas.

Attendance is up in national parks this year, and the National Park Service expects an increase of 3 percent over last year's attendance by the end of the year. Udall attributes this to the recession encouraging people to discover recreational opportunities closer to home. "It seems conservation goes in cycles. And some of them are short and some are small and some are big, but they're all important. ...This recession puts a real crimp in big ideas, costly ideas, but there are a lot of things that can be done even in a recession period. I realize it'll be difficult to do the kind of expansion we did in the 1960s as long as the recession is there. ...I'm very concerned about it, to tell you the truth."

Udall is also concerned about a new law that allows visitors to carry loaded guns into national parks. Sen. Tom Udall opposed this dramatic policy change approved by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama. Stewart Udall points to it as evidence that the gun lobby has "too much power."

He would like to see Americans push for more national lands to be acquired for preservation and public use — not just in the West, but also in the East and Midwest. "I would like to talk about it in terms of not just national parks but in terms of outdoor recreation. ...Follow what your congressmen and senators are doing. ...Push for projects that can be done. There are still people who come and look at New Mexico and are amazed at the amount of open space and just the amount of wilderness that exists. Chaco Canyon is one of my favorite places, and it stands out in my mind. It may be too late to enlarge it, but you probably could add some wilderness areas there at not too great a cost."

Besides creating parks and monuments, Udall used his influence as Secretary of the Interior to integrate the Washington Redskins football team. The Redskins had an all-white roster in 1961 when it began playing in the newly opened District of Columbia Stadium, which was owned by the federal government and controlled by the Interior Department. In 1962, Udall ordered the team's owners to integrate the Redskins if they wanted the team to continue playing in the stadium. The owners complied, and the Redskins became the last major football team to become integrated. Udall also helped integrate the National Park Service.

After he left Washington, Udall worked as a lawyer. In the late 1970s, he represented Navajos and others who had developed lung cancer from working in uranium mines during the Cold War bomb-building years. He lost the case but then fought for passage of the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act in 1990, which offered some compensation to sickened miners.

Lee, Udall's wife of 54 years, died nearly eight years ago. Her advocacy of the arts and education included founding the Center for Arts of Indian America. Udall calls her "a great mother and person." They had six children.

There is perhaps no better expression of Udall's advocacy for environmentalism than the closing lines of a long letter he wrote to his grandchildren three years ago: "Whether you are a person of faith who believes that the Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, whether you are an individual who has had mystical experiences that link you to the network of eternity, or whether you are a fervent conservationist who wants to leave a legacy for your progeny, the Earth needs your devotion and tender care.

"Go well, do well, my children. Support all endeavors that promise a better life for the inhabitants of our planet. Cherish sunsets, wild creatures, and wild places — have a love affair with the wonder and beauty of the Earth!"