The Role of Environmental NGOs: Russian Challenges, American Lessons Proceedings of a Workshop (2001) / Chapter Skim
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4 Development of a Leading Environmental NGO: Thirty Years of Experience
4 Development of a Leading Environmental NGO: Thirty Years of Experience
Pages 11-18
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From page 11... ...
The first national parks, Yosemite in California and Yellowstone in Wyoming, were created late in the nineteenth century. President Theodore Roosevelt and his Forest Service Chief Gifford Pinchot were enthusiastic promoters of the stewardship of public lands in the early twentieth century and popularized such ideas as the sustained yield of forests over long periods of time.
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From page 12... ...
Especially active with respect to PCB's, other chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides, lead-in gasoline, and dioxin, EDF pressed for stricter regulation of various toxic substances with deleterious environmental effects. It also joined other like-minded organizations, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, in addressing even more ubiquitous pollutants including carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and nitrogen oxides emitted by motor vehicles.
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From page 13... ...
Wetland conversions, stream channelizations, and water depletions and diversions caused major environmental losses, including species extinction, habitat degradation, and loss of ecological function. In many cases, the purported economic benefits of the projects did not outweigh the costs, environmental and economic, and the distributional effects were open to severe question as well.
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From page 14... ...
Ironically, private firms such as the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and the Southern California Edison Co., two of the United States' largest electricity generation firms, changed course and retreated from highly expensive and environmentally damaging investment plans well before many of their public agency counterparts, including the aforementioned Washington Public Power Supply System.
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From page 15... ...
in quantities that are not below established safe threshold levels. The principal effect of this law and of a similar federal requirement known as the Toxic Release Inventory has been to cause changes in private firm behavior that diminish or avoid altogether the requirement to disclose pollution releases to the environment.
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From page 16... ...
In 1993-94, however, the new President, Bill Clinton, and his administration sought an accommodation with Governor Wilson on water policy in California. After two long years of difficult negotiations involving myriad interest groups, including several environmental NGOs led by the Environmental Defense Fund's John Krautkraemer, a comprehensive agreement was reached between the state and federal governments on December 15, 1994.
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From page 17... ...
Once Congress passed the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, including the acid rain cap-and-trade mechanism, the Bush Administration, with EDF's assistance, developed regulations that ensured the smooth operation of a sulfur emissions market. That market has led to faster than expected sulfur emissions reductions at a cost of about 10 percent of what critics had estimated in opposing acid rain control legislation in the 1 980s.
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From page 18... ...
Residents of countries around the world sometimes have reason to concern themselves with potential environmental insults that may occur elsewhere than in their own country but that have international ramifications either in their impacts or in the identity of institutions who are involved directly or indirectly in actions leading to these environmental ramifications. Thus, environmental NGOs in many countries, including Environmental Defense in the United States, have paid particular attention to the activities of large international public lending institutions such as the World Bank and regional development banks.
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