The Earth Island Institute is a non-profit environmental group founded in 1982 by

David Brower David Ross Brower (; July 1, 1912 – November 5, 2000) was a prominent environmentalist and the founder of many environmental organizations, including the John Muir Institute for Environmental Studies (1997), Friends of the Earth (1969), Eart ...

. Located in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, it supports activism around environmental issues through

fiscal sponsorship Fiscal sponsorship refers to the practice of non-profit organizations offering their legal and tax-exempt status to groups—typically projects—engaged in activities related to the sponsoring organization's mission. It typically involves a fee-b ...

that provides the administrative and organizational infrastructure for individual projects.

''Earth Island Journal''

Earth Island Institute publishes a quarterly periodical entitled ''Earth Island Journal'', edited by Maureen Nandini Mitra. Content is largely dedicated to investigative pieces and showcases environmental grassroots movements as well as environmental reporting and commentary from around the world. The publication has received industry awards for "uncovering stories ignored by larger media outlets," including a 2019

Izzy Award The Roy H. Park School of Communications is one of five schools at Ithaca College, in Ithaca, New York, United States. The school is named after media executive Roy H. Park, who lived in Ithaca and who served on the board of trustees at Ithaca Co ...

for independent media.

Brower Youth Awards

Earth Island has presented the Brower Youth Awards, named for founder David Brower, to six young environmental leaders since 2000.

Dolphin-safe labeling

Earth Island Institute is the standard-bearer for dolphin-safe tuna labeling in 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 territorie ...

. The organization works to verify or reject domestic tuna as dolphin-safe.

Incubator projects

Earth Island Institute sponsors a number of fledgling activist groups which it refers to a
Incubator Projects
Many have gone on to become independent 501(c)(3) organizations while others remain under the umbrella of the institute. *

Plastic Pollution Coalition The Plastic Pollution Coalition (PPC) is an advocacy group and social movement organization which seeks to reduce plastic pollution. PPC operates under the fiscal sponsorship of the umbrella organization Earth Island Institute. Positions PPC ass ...

Rooted in Community The Earth Island Institute is a non-profit environmental group founded in 1982 by David Brower. Located in Berkeley, California, it supports activism around environmental issues through fiscal sponsorship that provides the administrative and orga ...

Alumni projects

As of March 2017, the following organizations were projects of Earth Island Institute before leaving to continue their environmental work as independent organizations: * Bluewater Network (merged with

Friends of the Earth Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is an international network of environmental organizations in 73 countries. The organization was founded in 1969 in San Francisco by David Brower, Donald Aitken and Gary Soucie after Brower's split with ...

) *

Energy Action Coalition Power Shift Network is a North American non-profit organization made up of a network of youth-led social and environmental justice organizations working together to build the youth clean energy and climate movement. It runs campaigns in the Unite ...

International Rivers International Rivers is a non-profit, non-governmental, environmental, and human rights organization. Founded in 1985 by social and environmental activists, International Rivers works with policy and financial analysts, scientists, journalists, ...

Rainforest Action Network Rainforest Action Network (RAN) is an environmental organization based in San Francisco, California, United States. The organization was founded by Randy "Hurricane" Hayes and Mike Roselle in 1985, and first gained national prominence with a gras ...

Sea Turtle Restoration Project The Sea Turtle Restoration Project (STRP), founded in 1989, is a project of Turtle Island Restoration Network (TIRN), a United States 501(c)(3) nonprofit environmental organization with a goal of protecting endangered sea turtles from human-caused ...

2013 Solomon Islands dolphin massacre

In January 2013, Fanalei villagers on the island of Malaita in the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

slaughtered close to 900 dolphins in retaliation for a payment dispute with Earth Island Institute. The dolphin slaughter occurred after villagers refused to renew a memorandum of understanding with Earth Island Institute that expired in April 2012. Villagers claim EII promised them $2.4 million Solomon Island Dollars (about $335,000 U.S.) to stop trading dolphins and dolphin-derived products for two years, but only received $700,000. Chairman Atkin Fakaia of a local villagers' association claimed that villagers had to kill the dolphins to trade the meat and teeth for money to survive in the local economy. Earth Island Institute Director Lawrence Makili accused the association of mishandling the first $300,000 invested under the original MOU. Makili accused the villagers' association of seizing funds and failing to distribute them.

References

External links

Earth Island Institute
{{Authority control Environmental organizations based in the San Francisco Bay Area Organizations based in Berkeley, California Politics of the San Francisco Bay Area 1982 establishments in California Fiscal sponsorship organizations