Natural Resources Defense Council Annual Report It’s just the beginning 2008 Victory for the Polar Bear! We’ve all seen the pictures: polar bears struggling to survive as their icy habitat melts around them. This year, NRDC and other environmental groups helped take the first step to pull the polar bear back from the brink of extinction. After a three-year legal battle, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to list the polar bear as a federally “threatened” species. Polar bears live only in the Arctic and are totally dependent on sea ice for their essential needs. Global warming is leading to polar bear starvation, drowning, and population declines as the sea ice melts away. The U.S. Geological Survey predicted that without strong protections, two-thirds of the world’s polar bear populations would likely be extinct by 2050, including all polar bears within the United States. NRDC’s lawyers, advocates, and members and activists refused to let the polar bear die. Our legal team took to the courtroom to prove that global warming was putting the polar bear at risk. And our members and online activists sent a Polar Bear SOS, letting their representatives know that they care about polar bear protection. But our fight is not over. While the new listing was a step forward, it was also riddled with loopholes for oil companies and other global warming polluters. In response, NRDC has filed another lawsuit to strengthen federal protections for the polar bear. We’re also fighting lawsuits by the oil and gas industry and the State of Alaska to entirely strip polar bears of their protections. Table of Contents Saving Litigation, Endangered Action, Wildlife and and Partnership for the Wild Places Education Earth PAGE 4 PAGE 12 PAGE 18 Our Partnership for the Earth NRDC scores a big win for wolves New media technologies help NRDC Co-Chairs lead NRDC’s in the Northern Rockies. reach more people than ever before. unprecedented fundraising campaign. Stemming PAGE 19 Curbing the Tide NRDC events and partners, Global of Toxic Warming & including our tenth annual Forces Chemicals for Nature gala. Creating the PAGE 14 Clean Energy Our health team protects people NRDC Donors ...............PAGE 19 Future around the world from dangerous PAGE 6 mercury pollution. Bequests .........................PAGE 39 On Capitol Hill and around the country, NRDC is advancing Financial climate and energy solutions. Accelerating Statement ......................PAGE 40 the Greening of China Staff ..................................PAGE 42 Reviving PAGE 16 Board of Trustees ......PAGE 43 the World’s NRDC greened the Oceans 2008 Olympic Village—and that’s just PAGE 10 the beginning. NRDC takes our fight to protect whales all the way to the Supreme Court. Sec2:2-Sec2:3 letters FROM THE Chairman of the Board he week after the presidential election last fall, I had the opportunity to attend NRDC’s staff retreat. The sense of possibility running through the air was invigorating. After eight years of battling to protect the Earth from the Bush onslaught, we reveled in the idea that environmental protection would once again hold a place of honor in Washington. T But what was most gratifying to me personally was when I got to speak to the entire NRDC staff. As I stood before 380 of the most talented advocates in the field, I was awed by the collective power of this institution. There gathered in one room were the strategists who brought global warming legislation to the Senate floor for the first time ever, the masterminds who figured out how to make energy efficiency just as profitable for utilities as building dirty power plants, and the negotiators who banned destructive fishing practices across the entire South Pacific. This is an electrifying time to be part of the most influential environmental organization in the nation. Yes, America is facing monumental challenges, the economic crisis first among them. But it is precisely in this moment that America needs bold solutions. And what has always drawn me to NRDC is that it devises solutions to the Earth’s biggest problems, then works harder than anyone else to put them in place. As Google CEO Eric Schmidt says, “This is the organization that gets stuff done.” Now more than ever, we can and must get things done. Even with a new administration, it will take expertise to get the details of climate legislation right; it will take influence in each state to get the swing votes, and it will take savvy communications and passionate citizen activists to counter the multimillion-dollar campaigns of the fossil fuel industry. NRDC has the skills the times demand. We are midway into our Partnership for the Earth Campaign, the most ambitious and important endeavor in NRDC’s history, and thanks to the generous support of our donors, we have further strengthened our scientific, legislative, and litigation muscle. As the pages in this report attest, we have achieved stunning results with that strength. We are ready to seize the moment. NRDC has already developed state-based programs ranging from solving suburban sprawl to enhancing renewable energy and preserving our special wild places. We have found ways for major corporations to reduce toxic chemicals in their products and supplier factories, and now with your continued support, NRDC will enact those solutions for the benefit of the entire world and for generations to come. Daniel R. Tishman Chairman of the Board nrdc 2008 Annual report Page 3 FROM THE President and the Executive Director t is with great pleasure that we write this letter at the dawn of a new era, one mixed equally with challenge and opportunity. America is gripped by the worst economic crisis in decades, and yet President Barack Obama recognizes that the path to economic stability must be built upon green solutions. Obama is entering office with a commitment to restore environmental governance Iand the integrity of science. Most important, he has pledged to enact a visionary energy policy that tackles our economic, oil, and climate crises all at the same time. He realizes that investing in clean energy—wind and solar power, energy efficiency, mass transit, and smarter electricity grids—is the fast track on America’s road to prosperity. America is ready for this kind of bold leadership, and just as NRDC was more than a match for the Bush agenda, we are ready with the forward-looking solutions America needs right now. NRDC’s policy experts—the same ones who last year moved groundbreaking global warming legislation into the Senate—are already working with lawmakers to hammer out a new climate bill that will cap global warming pollution and annually generate billions of dollars of clean energy capital. Our economists have analyzed the potential for green-collar job creation in several states. And our land and wildlife specialists are mapping out which landscapes offer potential for renewable power and which must remain off limits to energy development. Even with the solutions in hand, the road ahead will be difficult. We cannot undo eight years of environmental damage overnight. And we must not underestimate the severity of the economic downturn. But NRDC has prevailed in the face of formidable odds before, from back when we became the first law firm to hold polluters accountable to the many times we fought federal and state agencies on behalf of America’s wildlife and won. What is so exciting about this moment in time is that we have the chance not just to beat back destructive forces, but to actually propel America forward. With the extraordinary talent of our staff and the passionate support of our members, we can realize the promise of a cleaner, more sustainable future. Starting today. Frances Beinecke Peter Lehner President Executive Director Sec2:4-Sec2:5 the partnership for the earth campaign PROFILE: Felicia Marcus California is often at the epicenter of environmental progress. NRDC’s new Western Director, Felicia Marcus, will be on the ground out West where some of the most exciting new environmental initiatives in philip b. korsant wendy schmidt wendy neu john h. adams our Partnership for the Earth Campaign are taking place. Felicia comes to NRDC This year, we passed the halfway point and that our oceans will be so depleted of after working with the EPA in our momentous Partnership for the fish that the viability of commercial fisheries under President Clinton Earth Campaign, the most ambitious and everywhere is at risk by 2050. and then as the Executive important endeavor in NRDC’s history. As Through the Partnership for the Earth Vice President and Chief part of this sweeping, decade-long effort, our Campaign, NRDC is putting into place Operating Officer for the experts are working on six major objectives lasting protections that will preserve the Trust for Public Land. She that we believe have the greatest potential to earth for many generations to come. But we has deep roots in California, protect both the environment and people for cannot do it without the special relationship where she has been a tireless generations to come. We are advancing the between NRDC and donors who make a real advocate for decades on bold, cross-cutting strategies needed to drive and lasting impact on the daunting problems behalf of Californians, as a transformative change across the globe. we now face. public interest lawyer and A campaign of this magnitude requires no This is our moment. We can have a far- community organizer in small commitment. Through the generosity reaching effect on curbing global warming, Los Angeles representing of our donors, NRDC has raised a remarkable creating the clean energy future, reviving the nonprofit groups in air, water, $336.6 million toward our $400 million goal.