Posted by Jamie in Endangered Animals, Green Leaders | 0 Comments
Environmental Defense Fund: Safeguarding Mother Earth
The Environmental Defense Fund or EDF is a leading US-based nonprofit environmental advocacy organization with a network of over 500,000 members. Since its foundation in 1967, science, law, and economics have guided the group in order to produce innovative, equitable and cost-effective solutions to urgent environmental problems. It has become a vanguard of the environmental rights of all people to clean air, potable water, healthy food, and thriving ecosystems.
EDF has been successful in working for and advocating solutions to various environmental problems because it enjoys lasting political, economic and social support. It is non-partisan, scientific, fair and cost-efficient and is dedicated primarily, to finding solutions to environmental problems at home without neglecting America’s role in causing or solving global environmental issues.
History
The Environmental Defense Fund was a response to several scientists’ observations of the diminishing population of osprey and large raptors in the 1960s. Research conducted by its founders Art Cooley, George Woodwell, Charles Wurster, Dennis Puleston, Victor Yannacone and Robert Smolker pointed to DDT as the cause of species’ disappearance because mosquito-killing DDT weakened the egg shells of the birds. They initially set up the EDF as a campaign to ban the use of DDT in Long Island, New York. After succeeding in the effort, it sought to ban DDT in the state and later went to campaign for DDT bans nationwide. At present, the EDF is headed by Fred Krupp and is based in New York with offices nationwide.
Accomplishments
EDF’s prominent advocacy work focuses on global warming, ecosystem restoration, oceans, and human health, often pushing for market-based approaches to environmental problems. Some of its many landmark environmental contributions include:
- 1967 – Successfully launching a local and soon nationwide ban on DDT that harmed wildlife.
- 1974 – Its study of Mississippi River water helped pass the Safe Drinking Water Act, setting the first health standards for water in the US.
- 1990 – Designed Title 4 of the U.S. Clean Air Act.
- 1995 – Designed the Safe Harbor plan to protect endangered species.
- 2000 – Allied with global corporations to set firms’ reduction of GHGs.
- 2004 – Partnered with FedEx to produce fuel-efficient and environment-friendly hybrid electric trucks.
- 2006 – Co-authored the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 with Natural Resources Defense Council.
- 2007 – Co-founded the United States Climate Action Partnership.
