Earth Island Institute

Background

Earth Island Institute was founded in 1982 by prominent mountaineer and environmentalist David Brower, who had been the first executive director of the Sierra Club and also founded Friends of the Earth, the John Muir Institute, the North Cascades Conservation Council, and the Fate of the Earth Conferences. ^{2 3} Brower left the Sierra Club in the late 1960s after conflicts with board members whom he accused of being insufficiently opposed to nuclear power, but would later return as a member of the organization’s board of directors. ⁴

Fiscal Sponsorships

Earth Island Institute serves as an incubator and parent organization to a wide variety of left-of-center organizations with a wholly or partially environmentalist mission. As of November 2025, it claimed more than 75 organizations under its sponsorship in the United States and other countries. “Earth Island Projects.” Earth Island Institute. Accessed November 26, 2025. https://www.earthisland.org/index.php/project.[/note]

Its sponsored organizations include Alaska Clean Water Advocacy; the ALERT Project; Alter Terra; Armenian Environmental Network; Baikal Watch; Bay Area Wilderness Training; the Borneo Project; California Climate and Agriculture Network; California Institute for Community, Art & Nature; California Trade Justice Coalition; California Urban Streams Partnership; Capacity Collaborative; Castanea Fellowship; Conservation Kids; Cultivate Oregon; EcoEquity; Ecovet Global; EcoVilage Farm Learning Center; EnergieRich; Ethical Traveler; Eurasian Wildlife and Peoples; Fish On; Food Culture Collective; Food Shift; the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty; Friends of Alemany Farm; Friends of Muonde; Garden for the Environment; Green Schoolyards America; Guias Unidos; International Marine Mammal Project; John Muir Project; Junior Wildlife Ranger; Kelly Creek Protection Project; KIDS for the BAY; Law Students for Climate Accountability; Mississippi Farm to School Network; Nature in the City; PGM ONE; Planet Earth Arts; Plastic Pollution Coalition; Project Coyote; Public Lands Media; Raptors Are The Solution; Richmond Trees; Rise St. James; Sacred Land Film Project; Save Our Soil; Serengeti Watch; Shark Stewards; She Builds Power; South Coast Habitat Restoration; Stop Fish Bombing USA; Tallgrass Institute; Transition Earth; Ultimate Civics; Viva Sierra Gorda; Wild Heritage; Wild Oyster Project; WildFutures; Women’s Earth Alliance; and Youth Empowered Action Camp. ⁵

Litigation

Earth Island Institute operates a pro bono environmental litigation arm, Earth Island Advocates, that uses its sponsored projects as plaintiffs for strategic lawsuits to advance its policy agenda. ⁶

In 2025, EII project Capacity Collaborative was a plaintiff in litigation led by the Southern Environmental Law Center to force the reinstatement of the National Clean Investment Fund, which had been shut down by the second Trump administration and was the subject of investigations into potential legal or ethical violations in the program’s management. ^{7 8}

The EII’s John Muir Project has filed lawsuits against the federal government since 2019 attempting to limit or halt logging in national forests, national parks, and other federally managed areas. These lawsuits have been criticized by residents in those areas, forestry scientists, and fire departments for contributing to destructive wildfires by interfering with logging operations that are designed to reduce fire risks in overgrown forests. ⁹

One John Muir Project lawsuit was blamed for halting the removal of tens of thousands of trees from Yosemite National Park in 2022, interfering with park officials’ forestry management plans to reduce the risk of wildfires that could destroy the park’s iconic sequoia redwood groves. ⁹

“Big Plastic”

In 2020, EII and three of its sponsored projects filed a lawsuit in California against Crystal Geyser Water Company; the Clorox Company; the Coca-Cola Company; PepsiCo, Inc.; Nestlé USA, Inc.; Mars, Incorporated; Danone North America; Mondelez Global LLC; Colgate-Palmolive Company; and the Procter & Gamble Company. The lawsuit argued that the defendant companies, which it dubbed “Big Plastic,” had violated California’s consumer-protection laws and common law by selling products that “created the condition of plastic pollution.” It also argued that the companies had misled the public regarding the efficacy of plastic recycling, and had refused to switch to non-polluting but less profitable materials. ¹⁰

The lawsuit sought compensatory damages, attorney’s fees, legal costs, and orders requiring the companies to “abate the nuisance” of plastic pollution and “disburse the funds and resources necessary to remediate the harm they have caused.” ¹⁰

Over the course of 2025, three of the defendant companies reached settlements with EII. ¹⁰ Proctor & Gamble, Nestle USA, and Danone America agreed to support EII initiatives and take some steps to reduce plastic waste from their products. ¹¹

Opposition to Nuclear Energy

See also Opposition to Nuclear Energy

Earth Island was one of more than 600 co-signing organizations on a January 2019 open letter to Congress titled “Legislation to Address the Urgent Threat of Climate Change.” The signatories declared their support for new laws to bring about “100 percent decarbonization” of the transportation sector and denounced nuclear power as an example of “dirty energy” that should not be included in any legislation promoting the use of so-called “renewable energy,” despite the evidence that nuclear power does not produce carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions and was the largest source of zero-carbon electricity in the United States. ^{12 13}

Funding

Earth Island institute and its sponsored projects have received funding from institutional environmentalist and other left-of-center institutional donors. ¹⁴

Its funders have included the Amalgamated Charitable Foundation; Rockefeller Family Fund; Environmental Defense Fund (EDF); NEO Philanthropy; Tides Center; Sierra Club; Rudolf Steiner Foundation (RSF Social Finance); National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; New Venture Fund (NVF); Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA); Annenberg Foundation; U.S. Climate Action Network (US-CAN); Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC); Liberty Hill Foundation; Movement Strategy Center; National Philanthropic Trust; California Wellness Foundation;  Craigslist Charitable Fund; Conservation, Food and Health Foundation;  Clif Bar Family Foundation; International Rivers Network; Trust for Public Land; East Bay Community Foundation; Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin, and Sonoma Counties; Marin Community Foundation; San Francisco Foundation; Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund; Boston Foundation; Charities Aid Foundation of America; Avaaz Foundation; Animal Legal Defense Fund; Grassroots International; Earthworks; Threshold Foundation; Skoll Fund; Possibility Labs; Common Counsel Foundation; Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF); New York Community Trust; Jewish Communal Fund; Urgent Action Fund for Feminist Activism; One Earth; Sustainable Markets Foundation (SMF); KPMG Foundation U.S.; Johnson Charitable Gift Fund; American Online Giving Foundation; and Energy Foundation. ¹⁴