Natural Resources Defense Council

Overview

NRDC is the nation's most effective environmental action organization. We use law, science and the support of 1.2 million members and online activists to protect the planet's wildlife and wild places and to ensure a safe and healthy environment for all living things.

Mission

NRDC's purpose is to safeguard the Earth: its people, its plants and animals and the natural systems on which all life depends. We work to restore the integrity of the elements that sustain life -- air, land and water -- and to defend endangered natural places.

Program

The Air/Energy Program focuses on clean air standards, global warming, transportation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy.

The Health Program focuses on safe drinking water, pesticides, industrial chemicals and other environmental health threats, and reducing the use and release of toxics into the environment.

The International Program works on rainforests, biodiversity, habitat preservation, oceans and marine life, nuclear weapons and global warming.

The Land Program focuses on the biological and natural values of national forests, parks and other public lands, to promote improved management of private forest lands, and to reduce consumption of products made from wood.

The Nuclear Program surveys and analyzes developments on a variety of nuclear weapon issues ranging from keeping track of global arsenals to the problems of waste and fissile material disposition, security and control.

The Urban Program focuses on environmental problems confronting major urban centers, including air and water quality, habitat and open space, garbage and recycling, transportation, water supply, and sprawl.

The Water and Oceans Program works to protect and restore the nation's water quality, fish populations, wetlands and oceans.

Impact

1973 - NRDC begins action that wins phase-out of lead in U.S. gasoline
1978 - NRDC wins fight to remove ozone-depleting CFCs from aerosol cans
1985 - NRDC helps win adoption of national efficiency standards for consumer appliances, saving billions of dollars in electrical bills
2003 - NRDC wins a federal court case stopping the worldwide deployment of a Navy sonar system that would have blasted oceans with noise so intense it could maim, deafen and kill whales.
2005 - NRDC staves off the administration's attempts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

Countries of Operation

United States, China, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Chile, Peru