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Doug

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2 reviews

Review for Los Padres ForestWatch, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

Rating: 5 stars  

Los Padres ForestWatch is an outstanding example of a highly effective grassroots environmental organization. LPFW is providing a bold and clear voice in the protection of the Los Padres National Forest. I'm truly grateful for the important work Jeff and his colleagues are doing. Donating to LPFW is great way to ensure that your conservation dollars have a big impact. I work for a foundation that supports conservation work in California. We have consistently been making grants to LPFW since 2007 and I heartily recommend LPFW to other funders.

Was your donation impactful?

Definitely

How likely is it that you would recommend that a friend donate to this group?

Definitely

How likely are you to donate to this group again?

Definitely

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

2012

Role:  Donor
 

Review for Center for Biological Diversity Inc, Tucson, AZ, USA

Rating: 5 stars  

The Center for Biological Diversity embodies an important new form of environmental activism. In the late 1980s, American biodiversity protection advocates faced a dilemma of choosing between two paths for protecting wildlife, each with notable limitations. The first path was represented by national environmental organizations that relied on the insider strategy commonly used by interest groups in Washington, DC, which depended on privileged access to politicians to influence policy. The problem with this strategy was that it regularly led these organizations to avoid taking strong stands on controversial issues when they believed such stands might hurt their access and influence. The second path consisted of activists who engaged in direct actions such as sitting in old-growth trees to deter loggers from cutting them down. Because these activists did not rely on an insider strategy they could be as bold as needed, but their direct-action tactics rarely saved biodiversity on a large scale. Faced with the limitations of each of these two paths, the founders of the Center chose instead to create a third path. Center activists embraced legal tactics, but rejected the constraints of the insider strategy. They were willing to file lawsuits against the federal government for its failure to enforce its own environmental laws in cases the national organizations avoided as potentially controversial. As a result, the Center has been able to apply the Endangered Species Act far more extensively than had ever been attempted before, achieving an unprecedented increase in species protection over the past two decades. The Center has thus offered the environmental movement an exciting new path for saving biodiversity that is simultaneously bold and influential.

I've personally experienced the results of this organization in...

every region and issue that the Center has gotten involved in.

The kinds of staff and volunteers that I met were...

uncompromising advocates on behalf of wildlife and wildlands.

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

2009

Role:  Donor & I direct a grantmaking program that funds the great work of the Center.