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The Natural Resources Defense Council is a non-profit environmental advocacy organization with more than 400,000 members.  NRDC’s staff of  more than 80 lawyers, scientists, and specialists addresses the full range of pressing environmental challenges, including biodiversity preservation, climate change, nuclear weapons, air and water pollution, toxics, energy, and transportation.  NRDC engages in litigation, legislation, policy and technical research, media, e-activism, and grassroots organizing.  Established in 1970, NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco.  Since 1974,  NRDC has had an active international program and has worked cooperatively with counterpart organizations throughout the world. 

NRDC’s BioGems Initiative

In January 2001, NRDC launched a new initiative to protect threatened wild places throughout the Americas.  This initiative builds upon the current efforts of NRDC to preserve special natural areas in the United States and elsewhere in the hemisphere.  One of our principal goals is to empower the public worldwide to take action to protect some of  our planet’s true biological gems.  Citizen action is a central component of multi-faceted campaigns that NRDC is undertaking to stop the destruction or degradation of these “BioGems.”   We have identified 12 BioGems under immediate threat in North and Mesoamerica. In addition, we have created a “Watch List” of four special natural places in danger in South America.   See www.savebiogems.org

A model for these campaigns outside the United States is the successful 5-year effort to stop the construction by Mitsubishi and its Mexican Government partner of a massive industrial salt works at Laguna San Ignacio in Baja California Sur, Mexico - the last pristine breeding ground of the gray whale.  Taking the lead from Mexican environmental organizations, NRDC and the International Fund for Animal Welfare were able to mount one of the largest international environmental campaigns in history.  It ranged from extensive consultations with and support for concerned communities around the lagoon to an unprecedented petition to the UN World Heritage Committee to put the lagoon on the list of World Heritage Sites “In Danger.”   Major components of the campaign also included advocacy in Mexican courts and administrative agencies and media outreach, including sophisticated press relations and paid advertising.  We also worked very hard to develop a strong scientific and economic case against the salt works.  One important turning point in the effort was the issuance of a statement from 34 leading international scientists, including 9 Nobel Laureates, in opposition to the salt works.

As a result of the MacArthur Foundation’s 1999 Latin America Environmental Law Grantees Meeting in Cuernavaca, we first made contact with environmental organizations in Belize opposed to the construction of a dam in the upper Macal River in the western part of that country.  The proposed Chalillo dam - which would be built by Fortis, a Canadian company and Duke Energy, an American company - would destroy 22 miles of  a very rare floral floodplain habitat for a number of important species, including scarlet macaws, jaguars, and tapirs.  The dam would degrade one of the wildest regions left in Central America, part of which is theoretically protected as a national park.   Over the last year, we have provided legal, technical, and strategic assistance to our Belizean partner organizations and have worked to “internationalize” the controversy over the dam.  We took the issue to our members and the public in the U.S. and Canada and generated more than 20,000 letters to Fortis and Duke Energy.  In October 2000, NRDC helped to secure passage of a resolution on the Macal River dam controversy at the IUCN World Conservation Congress.  See www.stopfortis.org

From our 30 years of work in the United States, NRDC has learned that legal actions can be ultimately effective in protecting biodiversity only if it is seen as a component of broader campaigns to influence key decision-makers in government and industry.  We found that a focus on a charismatic natural place is essential to stimulate media attention and public pressure. However, as we saw in the victory at Laguna San Ignacio, these campaigns can help to inspire broader concern and activism to protect biodiversity.

NRDC is eager to step up similar BioGem campaigns already underway in Guatemala and Costa Rica and to be able to address threats to other special natural places in Mesoamerica.  We would also like to get actively involved in such campaigns in South America.  We take on these cases only in response to requests from in-country environmentalists who feel that our international efforts will enhance their current efforts at home.  We can be most effective when the threat comes at least in part from the decisions or actions of multinational corporations or international agencies -- an increasingly common phenomenon in our globalized economy.  We look forward to working with the Latin American Environmental Law Grantees on the further refinement and development of this Initiative.