Environmental Defence (formerly known as the Canadian Environmental Defence Fund) is a Canadian

environmental organization An environmental organization is an organization coming out of the conservation or environmental movements that seeks to protect, analyse or monitor the environment against misuse or degradation from human forces. In this sense the environmen ...

, founded in 1984. Its areas of education and research include toxic chemicals,

urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...

oil sands Oil sands, tar sands, crude bitumen, or bituminous sands, are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. Oil sands are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and wate ...

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

water quality Water quality refers to the chemical, physical, and biological characteristics of water based on the standards of its usage. It is most frequently used by reference to a set of standards against which compliance, generally achieved through tr ...

, and endangered species.

History

The organization was founded in 1984. Environmental Defence was part of the founding of the Green Energy Act Alliance. The Green Energy and Economy Act, a first for North America, went into law in

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

in 2009, and outlined a strategy to improve

conservation Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws. Conservation may also refer to: Environment and natural resources * Nature conservation, the protection and managem ...

, increase renewable energy generation, and create green jobs. The Act formed part of the Ontario government's plan to put the province on a path towards reducing its

greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and ...

, while becoming a leader in the emerging global renewable energy sector. In its 2018 annual report, Environmental Defence stated that, during the year prior, it had raised over C$3.8 million.

Areas of focus

Environmental Defence has a number of different areas of focus, including the following: * Combating climate change, and creating jobs in the clean economy. * Growing Ontario's Greenbelt, and developing functional, livable cities. * Ensuring safe products are on Canadians' shelves. *Informing the public about the dangerous chemicals in consumer products. * Protecting safe, clean water. * Creating a future free from plastic waste. * Engaging young people in the future of environmental journalism.

Studies

In 2008, Environmental Defence and The Workgroup for Safe Markets in the US commissioned a report, researched by a lab at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

, which stated that plastic baby bottles from a number of manufacturers, including Avent, Evenflo, Dr. Brown's and Disney/First Years, were leaching unsafe levels of bisphenol A (BPA) when heated. This led to dozens of state and national environmental health organizations in Canada and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

calling for an immediate moratorium on the use of BPA in baby bottles, and other food and beverage containers. In 2017, Environmental Defence and the

Natural Resources Defense Council The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States-based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Bo ...

(NRDC) released a report showing how

tar sands Oil sands, tar sands, crude bitumen, or bituminous sands, are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. Oil sands are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and wate ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

operations in

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

generated over 250 billion gallons of toxic

tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overli ...

– a poisonous mixture of water, sand, silt, heavy metals, and other petrochemical waste products – have been stored in toxic lakes that cover an area greater than

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

and

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

combined. The NRDC noted that research by the

Canadian federal government The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown ...

has determined that toxic tailings are seeping into groundwater and the

Athabasca River The Athabasca River (French: ''Rivière Athabasca'') is a river in Alberta, Canada, which originates at the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park and flows more than before emptying into Lake Athabasca. Much of the land along its banks is ...

. Environmental Defence and Daniel T’seleie of the K’ahsho Got’ine

Dene The Dene people () are an indigenous group of First Nations who inhabit the northern boreal and Arctic regions of Canada. The Dene speak Northern Athabaskan languages. ''Dene'' is the common Athabaskan word for "people". The term "Dene" ha ...

First Nation Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

requested the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) – the NAFTA environmental tribunal – to investigate whether the Canadian government was failing to enforce its Fisheries Act by allowing tar sands tailings to leak into Alberta water bodies.

References

Environmental organizations based in Ontario Organizations based in Toronto {{Nonprofit-org-stub