When the first Earthjustice attorneys
walked into a courtroom in 1971,
many of our nation’s environmental laws
were brand new.
The earth needed a good lawyer.
Today, five decades later:
With 200 attorneys,
on behalf of 1,000 public-interest clients,
and with you by our side,
we take on the environmental challenges
of our time — and together, we win.
In this year of change and challenges,
you were extraordinary.
Thanks to your support,
we achieved more than 100 victories this year
for the earth and its people,
including these landmark wins:
In February, you saved one of the largest reef systems in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in a ruling from Mexico’s highest court that underpins the protection of the right to a healthy environment.
That same month, you saved gray wolves from being hunted across much of the U.S., when a court restored federal endangered species protections, bringing wolves back on a path to recovery.
Two months later, you restored stream flows on Hawaiʻi’s Molokai, returning life-giving water to communities and ending a century of waste by plantation-era landowners.
Then, you accelerated the rise of clean energy with legal wins against one of the dirtiest coal plants in Michigan and a polluting gas plant in New York — replacing fossil fuels with clean energy solutions.
In July, you elevated the voices of agricultural workers fighting for justice from the harms of toxic pesticides such as glyphosate.
The next month, you triumphed in bringing closer an end to the era of fossil fuels when a court reinstated the federal coal leasing moratorium — following an earlier legal ruling that revoked attempts to auction off 80 million acres of our nation’s waters to oil and gas leasing.
In the fall, you secured brighter futures for children across the country, when EPA finally took steps to regulate the nation’s largest source of lead emissions — leaded aviation gas.
And, in stunning sequential victories, you defeated two massive petrochemical complexes planned for Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.”
You did all of this,
and so much more.
Every one of Earthjustice’s clients
gets top-tier legal representation, free of charge —
thanks to your support.
We work alongside
communities across the country
to fight for clean air, clean water, and
protections for wilderness and wildlife —
one case at a time.
“This is not just a tribal fight; we are fighting on behalf of all who value the Great Lakes and our environment.”
“The Straits of Mackinac are a precious and culturally sacred part of our ecosystem that should not be jeopardized in the name of corporate greed. This is not just a tribal fight; we are fighting on behalf of all who value the Great Lakes and our environment.”
“Our founders were freemen who bought this property with whatever money they earned and saved.”
The Story“We’ve been conditioned to think this is normal, but it’s not.”
The StoryWherever you live,
Earthjustice is fighting for you.
Until we achieve a better world for all,
our pursuit for justice will never rest.
From red knot shorebirds to Florida’s manatees, we will protect imperiled species and the ecosystems that support their lives — and ours.
We will end the extraction and burning of fossil fuels in old and new frontiers — including the explosive growth of fossil-fueled cryptocurrency mining — to terminate the fossil fuel industry’s destructive grip on our world.
We will protect our Arctic, where we have fought relentlessly — and successfully — for four decades to defend our climate and the region’s waters and most sensitive landscapes from oil and gas drilling.
We will stop the exploitation and destruction of lands and waters — from Minnesota’s Boundary Waters to southwestern lands sacred to Tribes and Indigenous communities.
We will make our nation’s food system safer and cleaner by enforcing laws to support climate-friendly, sustainable agriculture and challenging the worst abuses of industrial agriculture.
We will partner with communities throughout the country in their fight for intersectional justice, including a resilient, localized clean energy system for Puerto Rico.
We will safeguard the waters of the U.S. and the air we breathe by enforcing science-driven laws and compelling agencies to regulate the cumulative impacts of pollution.
We will accelerate the shift to zero carbon emissions and a pollution-free electricity grid by phasing out fossil-fuel power generation and eliminating barriers to renewable energy.
We will remove toxic chemicals from our lives, ensuring neighborhoods and workplaces are safe from toxic air emissions, PFAS contamination, and more.
We will leave no one behind
in our fight for a thriving world.
The law makes change.
You did a lot of good in 2022.
Thank you.
Now, let’s talk about 2023.
