THE SIERRA CLUB
The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization founded
on May 28, 1982 in San Francisco, California by the well-known
preservationist John Muir, who became its first president. The
executive Director runs the day-to-day operations of the group
and is a paid staff member. The current Executive Director is
Carl Pope.
The Sierra Club has more than 1.3 members and supporters. The
Club is America's oldest, largest and most influential grassroots
environmental organization.
Mission Statement:
1. Explore, enjoy and protect the wild places of the earth.
2. Practice and promote the responsible use of the earth's ecosystems
and resources.
3. Educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality
of the natural and human environment.
4. Use all lawful means to carry out these objectives.
In order to focus attention on particular issues the Sierra
Club's national and local entities select priorities and organize
campaigns. The current national priorities (as of 2006) are:
Smart Energy Solutions/Global Warming, Safe and Healthy Communities
(clean water and clean air), and America's Wild Legacy (wildlands).
Campaigns to achieve those and other priorities are planned
and conducted chiefly by volunteers in the various club entities,
with the help of support staff. The club also hires people for
campaigns through the Fund for Public Interest Research, as
do some other organizations in the environmental movement.
One long-standing goal of the Sierra Club has been opposition
to dams it considers inappropriate. In the early 20th centur,
the organization fought against the damming and flooding of
the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park. Despite this
lobbying, Congress authorized the construction of O’Shaughnessy
Dam on the Tuolumne River. The Sierra Club continues to lobby
for removal of the dam, urging that San Francisco’s water needs
be accommodated instead by the re-engineering of the Don Pedro
Reservoir downstream.
The Sierra Club is the nation's leader in grassroots environmental
litigation. The Club's Environmental Law Program creates and
prosecutes the legal strategies for the Sierra Club's nationwide
grassroots campaigns. The Environmental Law Program's docket
covers the entire range of environmental issues, from local
fights over ill-planned sprawl to cases of national significance
on clean air, clean water and wilderness.
The Sierra Club has been the nation's leader in environmental
litigation since the beginning. In 1971, the pioneering Sierra
Club v. Morton lawsuit - the case that challenged a proposed
ski area in the Mineral King valley of California - gave citizens
the right to sue to enforce environmental laws. Since then,
the Sierra Club has used the courts to fight for environmental
protection at the national, regional, and local levels, giving
citizens the means and legal expertise to enforce our hard-won
environmental laws and battle destructive projects. The law
books are literally filled with watershed decisions won by the
Club over the years.
The Sierra Club's litigation record has made it a major force
to be reckoned with by government officials and industry alike.
Building on that credibility and reputation, the Sierra Club
launched an expansion of its legal program at the turn of the
millennium, bringing on board a highly accomplished team of
lawyers to direct the Club's nationwide, strategic legal efforts.
The expanded Environmental Law Program supports and relies upon
a partnership with the Club's nationwide grassroots activists,
including over 155 Sierra Club chapters and groups. The national
legal team brings the national might and vision of the Sierra
Club to the local level, and fights for the rights of local
communities with the resources and reach of the nation's oldest
and largest environmental organization.
