The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization with chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded in 1892, in San Francisco, by preservationist John Muir. A product of the progressive movement, it was one of the first large-scale environmental preservation organizations in the world. Since the 1950s, it has lobbied politicians to promote environmentalist policies, even if they are controversial. Recent goals include promoting sustainable energy and mitigating global warming, as well as opposing the use of coal, hydropower, and nuclear power. Its political endorsements generally favor liberal and progressive candidates in elections.
David Ross Brower was a prominent environmentalist and the founder of many environmental organizations, including the John Muir Institute for Environmental Studies (1997), Friends of the Earth (1969), Earth Island Institute (1982), North Cascades Conservation Council, and Fate of the Earth Conferences. From 1952 to 1969, he served as the first Executive Director of the Sierra Club, and served on its board three times: from 1941–1953; 1983–1988; and 1995–2000 as a petition candidate enlisted by reform-activists known as the John Muir Sierrans. As a younger man, he was a prominent mountaineer.
Ecolabels and Green Stickers are labeling systems for food and consumer products. The use of ecolabels is voluntary, whereas green stickers are mandated by law; for example, in North America major appliances and automobiles use Energy Star. They are a form of sustainability measurement directed at consumers, intended to make it easy to take environmental concerns into account when shopping. Some labels quantify pollution or energy consumption by way of index scores or units of measurement, while others assert compliance with a set of practices or minimum requirements for sustainability or reduction of harm to the environment. Many ecolabels are focused on minimising the negative ecological impacts of primary production or resource extraction in a given sector or commodity through a set of good practices that are captured in a sustainability standard. Through a verification process, usually referred to as "certification", a farm, forest, fishery, or mine can show that it complies with a standard and earn the right to sell its products as certified through the supply chain, often resulting in a consumer-facing ecolabel.
Cetacean bycatch is the accidental capture of non-target cetaceans such as dolphins, porpoises, and whales by commercial fisheries. Bycatch can be caused by entanglement in fishing nets and lines, or direct capture by hooks or in trawl nets.
Dolphin drive hunting, also called dolphin drive fishing, is a method of hunting dolphins and occasionally other small cetaceans by driving them together with boats, usually into a bay or onto a beach. Their escape is prevented by closing off the route to the open sea or ocean with boats and nets. Dolphins are hunted this way in several places around the world including the Solomon Islands, the Faroe Islands, Peru, and Japan, which is the most well-known practitioner of the method. In large numbers dolphins are mostly hunted for their meat; some end up in dolphinariums.
Earthtrust (ET) is a non-governmental environmental organization based on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Earthtrust was founded by in 1976 by Don White, a founding member and former international campaign director of Greenpeace International who has directed the organization since its inception. Focusing mostly on marine conservation, Earthtrust is responsible for the largest conservation victory in history by biomass due to its critical role in exposing, documenting, and ending large-scale high seas driftnetting. Earthtrust has been involved in many high-profile advocacy actions; notably the pioneering use of genetic analysis to demonstrate the prevalence of pirate whaling, the first scientific demonstration of self-awareness in a non-primate at its Delphis lab, creation of the first international seafood environmental accreditation standard, binding the world's largest tuna firm (StarKist) contractually to its tuna-acquisition criteria, and being the first to take charge of the environmental disaster left by the retreating Iraqi army in the Gulf War. The organization was designed to have a high funding efficiency and effectiveness, showcasing the methodologies of "effectivism" and "system steering" as alternatives to standard activism, by preferentially taking on what would otherwise be considered "impossible missions".
Marine conservation activism is the efforts of non-governmental organizations and individuals to bring about social and political change in the area of marine conservation. Marine conservation is properly conceived as a set of management strategies for the protection and preservation of ecosystems in oceans and seas. Activists raise public awareness and support for conservation, while pushing governments and corporations to practice sound ocean management, create conservation policy, and enforce existing laws and policy through effective regulation. There are many different kinds of organizations and agencies that work toward these common goals. They all are a part of the growing movement that is ocean conservation. These organizations fight for many causes including stopping pollution, overfishing, whaling and by-catching, and supporting marine protected areas.
Dolphin-safe labels are used to denote compliance with laws or policies designed to minimize dolphin fatalities during fishing for tuna destined for canning.
In 1994, the WTO intervened to address member concerns regarding the import of shrimp and its impact on turtles. This became known as the Shrimp and Turtle case. The ruling was adopted on November 6, 1998. However, Malaysia persisted in their complaint and initiated DSU Article 21.5 proceedings against the U.S. in 2001, but the U.S. prevailed in those hearings.
Samuel Freeman LaBudde is an American biologist. He was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1991 for his landmark efforts on preserving dolphins and other marine species.
Anti-nuclear organizations may oppose uranium mining, nuclear power, and/or nuclear weapons. Anti-nuclear groups have undertaken public protests and acts of civil disobedience which have included occupations of nuclear plant sites. Some of the most influential groups in the anti-nuclear movement have had members who were elite scientists, including several Nobel Laureates and many nuclear physicists.
Friend of the Sea is a project of the World Sustainability Organization for the certification and promotion of seafood from sustainable fisheries and sustainable aquaculture. It is the only certification scheme which, with the same logo, certifies both wild and farmed seafood.
Richard "Ric" O'Barry is an American animal rights activist and former animal trainer who was first recognized in the 1960s for capturing and training the five dolphins that were used in the TV series Flipper. O'Barry transitioned from training dolphins to instead advocating against industries that keep dolphins in captivity, after one of the Flipper dolphins died. In 1996, a dolphin was seized from the Sugarloaf Dolphin Sanctuary, a corporation O'Barry worked for, for violating the Animal Welfare Act of 1966. In 1999, he was fined for violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act as the result of illegally releasing two dolphins that were not able to survive in the wild. The dolphins sustained life-threatening injuries.
The Taiji dolphin drive hunt is based on driving dolphins and other small cetaceans into a small bay where they can be killed or captured for their meat and for sale to dolphinariums. The new primary killing method is done by cutting the spinal cord of the dolphin, a method that claims to decrease the mammal's time to death. Taiji has a long connection to whaling in Japan. The 2009 documentary film The Cove drew international attention to the hunt. Taiji is the only town in Japan where drive hunting still takes place on a large scale.
Christopher Robert Porter is a Canadian political activist and was the biggest buyer and seller of dolphins in the world.
Since 1970s, there has been on going trade disputes between Mexico against the United States. The complaints were taken to General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) committee and its 1995 successor; the World Trade Organization (WTO). The case became known as Tuna-Dolphin I, Tuna-Dolphin II and US-Tuna II (Mexico). Complaints concerned the USA embargo on yellowfin tuna and yellowfin tuna product imports that used purse-seine fishing methods and the labeling there of. Purse-seine fishing has resulted in a high number of dolphin kills.
The Center for Safe Energy is non-profit environmental group founded in 1991 by Francis Underhill Macy and Enid Schreibman.
Dolphins are hunted in Malaita in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, mainly for their meat and teeth, and also sometimes for live capture for dolphinariums. Dolphin drive hunting is practised by coastal communities around the world; the animals are herded together with boats and then into a bay or onto a beach. A large-scale example is the Taiji dolphin drive hunt, made famous by the Oscar-winning documentary film The Cove. The hunt on South Malaita Island is smaller in scale. After capture, the meat is shared equally between households. Dolphin teeth are also used in jewelry and as currency on the island.
Seaspiracy is a 2021 documentary film about the environmental impact of fishing directed by and starring Ali Tabrizi, a British filmmaker. The film examines human impacts on marine life and advocates for ending fish consumption.
