Harold Gilliam

Harold Gilliam is a San Francisco-based writer, newspaperman, and environmentalist, a graduate of UC Berkeley, author of many books, and former San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner columnist. The "Harold Gilliam Award for Excellence in Environmental Reporting," given by the Bay Institute of San Francisco, is named in his honor. Gilliam’s article, "The Destruction of Mono Lake Is on Schedule," appeared in the Examiner’s Sunday edition in March 1979 and was one of the first articles to draw attention to Mono Lake’s plight.

Gilliam began his career in journalism as a copyboy at the Chronicle, where he was soon made a reporter. In 1954 he became a freelancer, then in 1960 began an environmental column at the Examiner; the following year, he returned to the Chronicle, where he continued his column, called "This Land," until retiring in 1995. San Francisco Bay, his first book, was on The New York Times bestseller list for 19 weeks. It led to his being invited to be a founder member of Save the Bay.

Gilliam was one of the first environmentalist journalists and helped mobilize public opinion to save many San Francisco Bay Area features. In the 1960s, through an article and personal contacts, he helped achieve a Marin County ordinance forestalling the bulldozing of archaeological sites. His article "The Destruction of Mono Lake Is on Schedule," which appeared in the Examiner in March 1979, was one of the first public accounts of the then-ongoing destruction of Mono Lake; in 1993, he was the first recipient of the Defender of the Trust award from the Mono Lake Committee. The Bay Institute named its Harold Gilliam Award in his honor. The group also gave him its Bay Education Award in 1995.