[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 26053-26054]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  HONORING HARRIET BURGESS, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDATION OF AMERICAN LAND 
                              CONSERVANCY

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, November 15, 2005

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a remarkable 
woman, Harriet Burgess, President and founder of American Land 
Conservancy. For the past 20 years, Harriet, who presently resides in 
Inverness, California, has applied her consummate skill in building 
consensus among legislators, government agencies, landowners and 
environmental groups for the conservation of public lands.
  Her list of acquisition accomplishments while Vice President of the 
Trust for Public Land reveals a national landscape of treasured sites. 
She saw a need for a non-profit land acquisition agency that would 
tackle the most challenging and difficult projects. She founded the 
American Land Conservancy to rescue irreplaceable environmental acreage 
from imminent development.
  Through her talent and perseverance she has kept intact precious 
tracts of land from California's Topanga Canyon to the Sierra Nevada 
and has been a matchmaker in arranging swaps and purchases of private 
lands for public uses from the Malibu coast to the Columbia River 
Gorge.

[[Page 26054]]

  One transaction in Nevada involved 44 different property swaps. She 
has also masterminded the acquisition of lands along the upper 
Sacramento River and the North Fork American. She played a role in the 
addition of a one thousand plus acre parcel to the San Francisco Bay 
Area's renowned Gate National Recreation Area.
  Harriet Burgess grew up in Xenia, Ohio where her fondest memory is 
wandering through the forest looking for wildflowers. But she didn't 
get into protecting public space until after her children were grown, 
when she volunteered to rewrite the zoning ordinance for Fairfax 
County, Virginia. During her time in Virginia, she was an exemplary 
member of my legislative staff in Washington, DC.
  After a divorce in 1978, she moved to California and headed the 
western regional office for the Trust for Public land before founding 
the American Land Conservancy in 1990. The Conservancy, under Harriet's 
direction, has become a potent force in safeguarding California's most 
precious open spaces. Through sheer persistence and tenacity Harriet 
has time and again brought seemingly out-of-reach projects within 
grasp, helping local communities realize their dreams of protected land 
for open space.
  Harriett Burgess has been a tireless and highly effective advocate of 
wilderness and recreational open space protection. Her list of 
accomplishments will be felt by generations.
  As friends gather on November 16, 2005 to pay tribute to Harriet's 
extraordinary contributions, I join them in thanking her for the fruits 
of her efforts. We are grateful for her tenacity and perseverance to 
protect our precious lands.

                          ____________________