Environmental Defense Fund - Areas of Work

Areas of Work

• Climate and energy - EDF aims to reduce the pollution and curtail global warming, with strategies including overhauling U.S. energy systems, protecting the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s limits on pollution, training new climate/energy leaders, and slowing deforestation in Brazil and the Amazon rainforest.
• Oceans - The organization works to protect marine ecosystems by creating sustainable fisheries, promoting the use of catch shares, and preserving fragile habitats like coral reefs. Geographical focus of Oceans programs include Belize, Cuba, the Chesapeake Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of California, and the South Atlantic.
• Health programs focus on cutting air pollution from utilities and transportation systems, reforming U.S. toxic chemicals policy, and working with corporations like Walmart to make safer products.
• Ecosystems - EDF works to promote ecosystem-friendly policy, helping landowners benefit from healthier land, water and wildlife. They work to restore river flows and native river bank habitat, broker agreements with landowners to protect endangered species, and partner with farmers and ranchers to improve habitat and water quality.
• Corporate partnerships - EDF has a long history of partnerships with corporations, fund managers, landowners, farmers, fishermen, and other groups. The organization receives no funding from its corporate partners.
• Environmental economics - The organization promotes the use of markets and incentives to help solve environmental problems. Examples of this approach at work include catch shares the cap-and-trade plan written into the Clean Air Act (United States).