Look carefully at the back of a California state quarter(25 美分). A man with a walking stick is pictured there. Who is this man? And why is he so important that he is features on the back of a coin?
The man on this quarter is John Muir. Even as a child, Muir loved watching nature. As a young man, he spent much of his life exploring the beauty of the wilderness. He walked more than a thousand miles across the country, through fields and woods. John Muir liked writing about the places he visited, describing their beauty.
Muir also wrote about problems. In order to get more farmland for sheep and cattle, many trees were being cut down. This made Muir unhappy and worried, because he knew that trees were important to forests and to the animals that lived in them. He wrote articles in magazines and newspapers to spread the word about conserving(保护) forests.
Muir wrote letters to important people, such as President Theodore Roosevelt. The president admired Muir's love for nature. When Roosevelt came to visit Muir in California. Muir convinced the president to go camping with him for three nights under the trees so they could talk about conservation. Later, President Roosevelt set aside(留出) 148 million acres of land for national forests and established five national parks.
Muir's work as a conservationist helped us to see the beauty of our natural world. He made us understand the importance of protecting our Earth and our resources—then, now, and for the future.
