The nation’s oldest environmental law firm, Earthjustice’s origins trace back to the mid-1960s when two volunteer attorneys began work on the Mineral King controversy. The Walt Disney Company had targeted this magnificent, remote high-Sierra valley in California as the site of a large ski resort, and the Forest Service gave the go-ahead. In 1971, with the case heading to the U.S. Supreme Court, the attorneys officially created the non-profit Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. (In the 1990s, the firm, which had always been independent of the Sierra Club, changed its name to Earthjustice.) The young organization succeeded in having the Mineral King case sent back to the trial court and the ski development project was soon dropped; the litigation brought the matter to light and strong public opinion in favor of keeping the Mineral King Valley pristine made the project politically impossible.
Ever since, Earthjustice has done first-rate legal work for the environment, sometimes representing—always without cost—national organizations such as the Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society and on other occasions litigating on behalf of individuals and regional and local environmental groups. Earthjustice, the largest nonprofit environmental law firm, has nine regional offices and has handled cases in all corners of the country. The firm also pays heed to “environmental justice” and brings cases on behalf of African-American and Hispanic communities and Indian tribes that have been disproportionately affected by bad environmental practices.
Earthjustice has taken on virtually every kind of environmental issue one can imagine. David Guest narrates the struggle to protect Florida’s lakes, rivers and swamps from the scourge of toxic algae outbreaks caused by agriculture and industry:
In Alaska, attorneys have brought campaigns to protect the elk, polar bears, and other wildlife of the Arctic wilderness from climate change and oil spills:
Earthjustice joined with the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, other environmental groups, and the Park Service to bring back the Elwha River’s great salmon runs by the removal of two dams on the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula. It is the largest dam removal in American history. Patti Goldman of the Northwest office explains the firm’s work to protect the wonderful and threatened orcas, the so-called killer whales renowned for their acrobatic leaps and complex social patterns, and also articulates the joy and deep commitment that she and other Earthjustice attorneys bring to their work.
Of course, there are a number of other nonprofit environmental law firms doing excellent work, and environmental lawyers in federal, state, tribal, and local government offices have made major contributions. Honoring Earthjustice in this manner in no way diminishes their many accomplishments but rather is a way of acknowledging how critical environmental law is to protecting and healing the environment.
America’s Top 10 Conservation Heroes is a series honoring the individuals and organizations that have made the biggest mark on conservation, environmental protection, and awareness of the outdoors. The series is written by Charles Wilkinson, Distinguished Professor at the University of Colorado and author of fourteen books on law, history, and society in the American West.
America’s Top 10 Conservation Heroes
1. Theodore Roosevelt
2. John Muir
3. Rachel Carson
4. Stewart Udall
5. Aldo Leopold
6. Ansel Adams
7. Earthjustice
8. Henry David Thoreau
9. Edward Abbey
10. Bruce Babbitt