ONE of Scotland's most famous walking and cycling trails may have to be renamed after a conservation charity was forced to condemn the role of its founder, John Muir, in “perpetuating white supremacy”.

The 134-mile John Muir Way, which begins in Helensburgh and runs to Muir's birthplace in Dunbar, on the east coast, was launched in 2014 in honour of the "father of National Parks".

The Scottish-American naturalist helped create Yosemite National Park, the Sierra Club, and inspired conservation projects around the world.

However, Muir, the “patron saint of the American wilderness”, has become the latest historical figure to be held to account for sharing the racist views of his time.

The Sierra Club, the oldest conservation group in the US, which Muir set up in California 128 years ago and now has 3.8m members, is to review its own role in “perpetuating white supremacy”.

READ MORE: 'We were victims of racism while growing up in Helensburgh - now Scotland must change'

As the Black Lives Matter movement prompts a reckoning across US society, the Club said it may now take down monuments to Muir, who was born in Dunbar in 1838.

And the debate has also intensified over whether the 134-mile John Muir Way - the first stage of which runs from Helensburgh to Balloch - should be renamed.

In a statement published on its website, the Sierra Club said it had a “complex history, some of which has caused significant and immeasurable harm”.

It said: “As defenders of Black life pull down Confederate monuments across the country, we must also take this moment to re-examine our past and our substantial role in perpetuating white supremacy. It’s time to take down some of our own monuments, starting with some truth-telling about the Sierra Club’s early history.

“The most monumental figure in the Sierra Club’s past is John Muir.

“Beloved by many of our members, his writings taught generations of people to see the sacredness of nature.

READ MORE: Ultra runner sets new record for John Muir Way from Helensburgh to Dunbar

“But Muir maintained friendships with people like Henry Fairfield Osborn, who worked for both the conservation of nature and the conservation of the white race.

“Head of the New York Zoological Society and the board of trustees of the American Museum of Natural History, Osborn also helped found the American Eugenics Society in the years after Muir’s death.”

Muir, who fought to preserve Yosemite in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains and the state’s Sequoia Forest, called African Americans “Sambos” and Native Americans “dirty,” “lazy” and “wife-stealing”.

The Club, which for decades screened out black members, said: “Muir was not immune to the racism peddled by many in the early conservation movement.

“He made derogatory comments about Black people and Indigenous peoples that drew on deeply harmful racist stereotypes, though his views evolved later in his life. As the most iconic figure in Sierra Club history, Muir’s words and actions carry an especially heavy weight. They continue to hurt and alienate Indigenous people and people of color who come into contact with the Sierra Club.”

The Club said some other early leaders were also white supremacists, including the eugenicist David Starr Jordan, whose legacy was later used by the Nazis.

The Club said it would invest a long overdue £4m in “our staff of color and environmental and racial justice work”.

It will also spend the next year “studying our history and determining which of our monuments need to be renamed or pulled down entirely”.

In Scotland, Muir’s work is also remembered in the John Muir Trust, John Muir Birthplace Trust and the John Muir Award scheme.

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