Below are links to organizations that address environmental issues. As the organizations' political and environmental philosophies range greatly, the JECE and the Washington and Lee University School of Law do not necessarily endorse any of these organizations or their respective policies.
American Land Rights Association
The American Land Rights Association (ALRA) is a grassroots, non-profit organization advocating private property rights and multiple use of federal lands including recreational and commercial access. ALRA is engaged in issues such as compensation for government takings of property, defending cabin permittees and inholders of private property within federal lands such as national parks and national forests, opposition to land acquisition trust funds such as the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA), and support for rural communities.
American Rivers
American Rivers is a national non-profit conservation organization dedicated to protecting and restoring America's rivers and to fostering a river stewardship ethic.
Clean Water Network
The Clean Water Network (CWN) is an alliance of more than 1,000 organizations that endorse its platform paper, the National Agenda for Clean Water, which outlines the need for strong clean water safeguards to protect human health and the environment. CWN includes a variety of organizations representing environmentalists, family farmers, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, surfers, boaters, faith communities, environmental justice advocates, labor unions, and civic associations.
Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT)
The Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) was created to offer a new voice on consumer and environmental issues. The Committee boldly proclaims that the Western values of competition, progress, freedom, and stewardship can and do offer the best hope for protecting not only the earth and its wildlife, but even more importantly, its people. So therefore, CFACT is working to promote free-market and safe technological solutions to such growing concerns as waste-management, food production and processing, electrical generation, air and water quality, wildlife protection and much more
The Conservation Fund
The Conservation Fund forges partnerships to protect America's legacy of land and water resources. Through land acquisition, community initiatives, and leadership training, the Fund and its partners demonstrate sustainable conservation solutions emphasizing the integration of economic and environmental goals.
Conservation International
Conservation International's mission is to conserve the Earth's living natural heritage, our global diversity, and to demonstrate that human societies are able to live harmoniously with nature.
Defenders of Property Rights
Defenders of Property Rights was founded in 1991 to counterbalance the governmental threat to private property as a result of a broad range of regulations. We believe that society can achieve important social objectives-- such as protection of our environment and preservation of our national heritage-- without destroying private property rights or undermining free market principles. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution explicitly provides that, "No person shall be . . . deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." The mission of Defenders of Property Rights is to ensure that the property rights contained in the Constitution be given the full effect of the law. To better achieve this goal, we focus our energy on three areas: education, litigation, and legislation.
Defenders of Wildlife
Defenders of Wildlife is dedicated to the protection of all native wild animals and plants in their natural communities. We focus our programs on what scientists consider two of the most serious environmental threats to the planet: the accelerating rate of extinction of species and the associated loss of biological diversity, and habitat alteration and destruction.
Earth Day Network
Earth Day Network is the nonprofit coordinating body of worldwide Earth Day activities. Our goal is to promote a healthy environment and a peaceful, just, sustainable world by spreading environmental awareness through educational materials and publications, and by organizing events, activities, and annual campaigns. Our network includes more than 5,000 organizations in 184 countries.
Earth First!
Earth First! was founded in 1979 in response to a lethargic, compromising, and increasingly corporate environmental community. Earth First! takes a decidedly different tack towards environmental issues. We believe in using all the tools in the tool box, ranging from grassroots organizing and involvement in the legal process to civil disobedience and monkeywrenching.
Endangered Species Coalition
As the guardian of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA), the Endangered Species Coalition (ESC) speaks on endangered species issues for over 440 environmental, conservation, religious, scientific, humane, sporting and business groups around the country. Our tools are public education, scientific information and public participation in all decisions affecting the fate of threatened and endangered species. Through extensive grassroots work, education, discussions with lawmakers, and the dissemination of information, we work to ensure that the Act itself as well as the species it protects, can be passed on safely into the future.
Environmental Defense
Environmental Defense is a not-for-profit environmental advocacy group with four main goals: (1) Stabilizing the Earth's climate, (2) Safeguarding the world's oceans, (3) Protecting human health, and (4) Defending and restoring biodiversity.
Environmental Organization Web Directory
Earth's Biggest Environment Search Engine
Environmental Working Group
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a leading content provider for public interest groups and concerned citizens who are campaigning to protect the environment
Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment (FREE)
FREE advances conservation and environmental values by applying modern science and America's founding ideals to policy debates. We are intellectual entrepreneurs, explaining how economic incentives, secure property rights, and responsible prosperity can foster a healthy environment. While our seminars are explicitly pro-environment, they explain why ecological values are not the only important ones. We stress that trade-offs among competing values are inescapable. We show why it is ethically and materially irresponsible to pretend such choices can be avoided.
Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth is a national environmental organization dedicated to preserving the health and diversity of the planet for future generations. As the largest international environmental network in the world with affiliates in 63 countries, Friends of the Earth empowers citizens to have an influential voice in decisions affecting their environment.
Global Climate Coalition
The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) was an organization of trade associations established in 1989 to coordinate business participation in the international policy debate on the issue of global climate change and global warming. Since 2002 the GCC has been defunct, or in its own words, "deactivated."
Greening Earth Society (http://greeningearthsociety.org - site apparently down)
Greening Earth Society believes that humankind's industrial evolution is good, and using fossil fuels to enable our economic activity is as natural as breathing. We promote the benign effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) on the earth's biosphere and humankind. Our message is that CO2 is required for life on earth and that the earth is actually getting greener thanks to increasing CO2 levels.
Greenpeace International
League of Conservation Voters
The League of Conservation Voters works to create a Congress more responsive to your environmental concerns. As the nonpartisan political voice for over nine million members of environmental and conservation groups, LCV is the only national environmental organization dedicated full-time to educating citizens about the environmental voting records of Members of Congress.
National Audubon Society
The mission of the National Audubon Society is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds and other wildlife for the benefit of humanity and the earth's biological diversity. Founded in 1905, the National Audubon Society is named for John James Audubon (1785-1851), famed ornithologist, explorer, and wildlife artist.
National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition
The National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition is a broad based coalition of roughly 150 member organizations, representing millions of individuals across the United States, that is dedicated to bringing balance back to the Endangered Species Act. Our membership includes rural irrigators, municipalities, farmers, electric utilities and many other individuals and organizations that are directly affected by the ESA.
National Environmental Trust
The National Environmental Trust is a non-profit, non-partisan membership group established in 1994 to inform citizens about environmental problems and how they affect our health and quality of life.
National Parks Conservation Association
Since 1919, the National Parks Conservation Association has been the sole voice of the American people in the fight to safeguard the scenic beauty, wildlife, and historical and cultural treasures of the largest and most diverse park system in the world. Originally created as a watchdog for the National Park Service, today NPCA partners with the federal government and numerous national, regional, and local groups to act
National Resource Defense Council
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) website provides a comprehensive environmental perspective on what's happening in the world today. You'll find everything environmental on NRDC's website, from quick overviews and fun features to in-depth technical materials. The hundreds of resources include news, legislative updates, scientific research, policy analyses and an action center that makes it easy to make your voice heard.
National Wilderness Institute
Conservative environmental think tank.
National Wildlife Federation
The mission of the National Wildlife Federation is to educate, inspire and assist individuals and organizations of diverse cultures to conserve wildlife and other natural resources and to protect the Earth's environment in order to achieve a peaceful, equitable and sustainable future. National Wildlife Federation's main goal is to raise awareness and involve people of all ages in their fight to conserve and protect the environment.
Nature Conservancy
Since 1951, we've been working with communities, businesses and people like you to protect more than 100 million acres around the world. Our Mission: To preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.
PERC (The Political Economy Research Center)
PERC is the nation's oldest and largest institute dedicated to original research that brings market principles to resolving environmental problems. PERC, located in Bozeman, Montana, pioneered the approach known as free market environmentalism.
Public Interest Research Group
The state Public Interest Research Groups are an alliance of state-based, citizen-funded organizations that advocate for the public interest. We uncover threats to public health and well-being and fight to end them, using the time-tested tools of investigative research, media exposes, grassroots organizing, advocacy and litigation. The state PIRGs' mission is to deliver persistent, result-oriented activism that protects the environment, encourages a fair marketplace for consumers and fosters responsive, democratic government.
Rainforest Action Network
Rainforest Action Network works to protect the Earth's rainforests and support the rights of their inhabitants through education, grassroots organizing, and non-violent direct action.
Rainforest Alliance
The Rainforest Alliance is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of tropical forests for the benefit of the global community. Our mission is to develop and promote economically viable and socially desirable alternatives to the destruction of this endangered, biologically diverse natural resource. We pursue this mission through education, research in the social and natural sciences, and the establishment of cooperative partnerships with businesses, governments, and local peoples.
REP (Republicans for Environmental Protection)
REP America was formed in 1995 to resurrect the GOP's great conservation tradition and to restore natural resource conservation and sound environmental protection as fundamental elements of the Republican Party's vision for America.
Science & Environmental Policy Project
The Science & Environmental Policy Project was founded in 1990 by atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer on the premise that sound, credible science must form the basis for health and environmental decisions that affect millions of people and cost tens of billions of dollars every year.
Sierra Club
The Sierra Club has over 700,000 members. Our mission statement:
· Explore, enjoy, and protect the wild places of the earth.
· Practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems and resources.
· Educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment.
· Use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.
Southern Environmental Law Center
The Southern Environmental Law Center is using the power of the law to champion Virginia’s environment — from clean energy and healthy air, to our scenic rural countryside, to the protection of special places from the Southern Appalachians to the Chesapeake Bay.
World Wildlife Federation
Known worldwide by its panda logo, WWF is the world's largest and most experienced independent conservation organization with 4.7 million supporters and a global network active in some 100 countries. WWF's mission is to protect nature and the biological diversity that we all need to survive.