“It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it, while you can, while it is still here.”

Thus wrote Edward Abbey in his classic conservation text, Desert Solitaire.

Edward Abbey was a writer, environmentalist, and general anarchist that opposed human interference with nature.  He bounced around many collegiate institutions. He even spent a year at Yale, which he chided for its Ivy League power structure structure
Something temporarily or permanently constructed, built, or placed; and constructed of natural or manufactured parts including, but not limited to, a building, shed, cabin, porch, bridge, walkway, stair steps, sign, landing, platform, dock, rack, fence, telecommunication device, antennae, fish cleaning table, satellite dish/mount, or well head.

Learn more about structure . Abbey received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of New Mexico.

Though he hails from Pennsylvania, most of Abbey’s works took place in the Southwest; this is likely inspired by the two seasons in 1956 and 1957 that he spent as a Seasonal Ranger with the National Park Service at Arches National Park in Utah. His writings combined the sensitivity of the poet with the curmudgeon’s stinging wit, while conveying a deep love for wilderness. His 1976 fictional comic novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang, inspired a new generation of environmental activism. Even Abbey’s death in 1989 embodied his own belief in active and joyous encounters with the environment: he requested to be buried in a sleeping bag in an unmarked grave in the Southwest desert.

Of his burial, Abbey said: “If my decomposing carcass helps nourish the roots of a juniper tree or the wings of a vulture—that is immortality enough for me. And as much as anyone deserves.”