Ron Arnold (born August 8, 1937) is an American writer and activist. He has been the Executive Vice-President of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise since 1984. He writes frequently on natural resource issues and is an opponent of the environmental movement. Critics see Arnold as promoting abuse of the environment, typified in an assessment by Wild Wilderness executive director Scott Silver: "Fifteen years after creating his 25 Point Wise-Use Agenda, an agenda prescribing unrestrained, unregulated and unconscionable abuse of the American commons, Ron Arnold is within striking distance of checking off every agenda item on his list." A key U.S. Senate staffer writing in 2011 noted his impact on federal legislation. Biography Arnold was born in Houston, Texas and studied business administration at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Washington. He died on January 24, 2022. https://www.heartland.org/about-us/who-we-are/ron-arnold https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/rip-ron-arnold-founder-of-the-wise-use-movement https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/ron-arnold-1937-2022 Career Arnold worked as a technical writer for the Boeing Company from 1961 until he left in 1971 to found Northwoods Studio. In 1974 he began contributing to Western Conservation Journal, which exposed him to the effects of litigation related to environmental issues upon logging and mining industries. Between 1978 and 1981, Arnold was a contributing editor of Logging Management Journal. His 1979 magazine series, "The Environmental Battle", analyzed the utilization / preservation conflict, and won the American Business Press 1980 Editorial Achievement Award. In 1981, Arnold wrote the authorized biography of Interior Secretary James G. Watt. Between 1982 and 1990, he wrote a weekly column for the Bellevue (Washington) Journal-American. In 1987, he founded the Free Enterprise Press, later merged into Merril Press, and began writing a series of books on the environmental movement. His "EcoTerror" was included in the "100 Best Nonfiction Books of the 20th Century" Random House / Modern Library Reader's List. Arnold also uncovered the identity of the actual founder of the United States National Forest after a century of mystery shrouded the origin in conflicting claims. An almost forgotten politician named William S. Holman created the concept and the initial legislation, as revealed in documents Arnold discovered in the National Archives. He was invited to present his findings at the centennial symposium of the United States Forest Service in 1991. Environmentalists have challenged Arnold's “Wise Use Movement,” launched at a Reno, Nevada conference in 1988, as inappropriately co-opting the term from utilitarian conservationist and first Chief of the