Announcing CELDF's Proposed Rights of Nature Principles
A new system of law based on respect for Nature and the…
Issues, News, Resources, Rights of Nature
Important Updates
A new system of law based on respect for Nature and the…
Issues, News, Resources, Rights of Nature
Human and ecosystem viability come when we figure out how to orient…
News, Rights of Nature
Protecting Water and Life: Frontline Stories from Ohioans fighting corporate and state…
Publications
Feb 25, 2018
CELDF’s Tish O’Dell shares discoveries of her own white privilege when fracking came into her community – and how Dr. Martin Luther King and Black Lives Matter inform her work with communities today
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsMay 4, 2017
Members of the New Hampshire legislature took advantage of a spring blizzard, attempting to undermine direct democracy.
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsMay 3, 2017
The 1% drive for a constitutional convention, advancing their own corporate interests. But we don’t need a convention. We need a whole new constitution.
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsDec 2, 2016
Ryan Talbott, an environmental lawyer, joins the Board of Directors of CELDF.
Read More | Press Releases & BlogsDec 2, 2015
The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund turns 20 years old! What began as a mission to help communities fight permits has evolved into a Community Rights Movement for people and nature.
Read More | Press Releases & Blogs, Success StoryAug 31, 2015
The story of one Pennsylvania community gaining community rights.
Read More | Community WiresAug 12, 2015
On November 23, 2010 Ellen Mavrich contacted CELDF asking for advice about adopting a community rights ordinance similar to the one enacted by Pittsburgh City Council, in consultation with CELDF, on November 16th. This is their story.
Read More | Community WiresAug 4, 2015
If your community needs help, please contact us now. Main Office Community Environmental Legal Defense FundP.O. Box 360Mercersburg, PA 17236 (717) 498-0054 info@celdf.org Press Contact Michelle Beatty michelle@celdf.org Account Management Get in Touch
Read More |Aug 4, 2015
What are Community Rights? Where did they come from? Why do we need them? In a series of Community Rights Papers, we will explore the roots of Community Rights in our history, and how they’ve emerged as rights movements – including our own American Revolution.
Read More |Aug 4, 2015
Sewage sludge is a dangerous solid waste product that is spread on farm fields – and CELDF has assisted the first communities in the U.S. to ban it. Learn about the perils of sewage sludge, how communities are organizing to stop it, and what you can do in your community.
Read More |Aug 4, 2015
Fracking is spreading across the U.S. – and CELDF has assisted the first communities in the U.S. to ban it. Learn here about the harms caused by fracking, how communities are organizing to stop them, and what you can do in your community.
Read More |Jul 31, 2015
Our Mission Our mission is to build sustainable communities by assisting people to assert their right to local self-government and the rights of nature. We help communities create a more democratic future. For over 25 years, we have assisted communities to develop first-in-the-nation, groundbreaking laws for worker rights, houseless rights, democratic rights, and the Rights… Read more »
Read More |Jul 20, 2015
The Raizal people of the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina off the coast of Colombia work with CELDF to recognize the Rights of Nature and to achieve their right to self-determination. CELDF travels to the Archipelago this month. Learn more here.
Read More | UncategorizedNov 5, 2014
Community Bills of Rights advance on Election Day 2014, with a record number of initiatives on the ballot, and a growing number of communities determined to drive those rights forward.
Read More | UncategorizedFeb 24, 2014
Jan 31, 2014
Thank you for supporting us in 2013! With your contributions, we will expand our work in 2014, meeting the growing numbers of requests for help from communities across the United States. If you have not yet donated, please click on the purple DONATE button on our website.
Read More | UncategorizedOct 30, 2013
Sangerville, ME, resident stands behind their first-in-the-nation Community Bill of Rights infrastructure ordinance, adopted by residents in September.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsOct 17, 2013
Updates from Oregon to Austraila in this month’s CELDF’s newsletter.
Read More | UncategorizedSep 18, 2013
Voters in Sangerville, ME, adopt a Community Bill of Rights ordinance to protect their municipality from a private transportation corridor.
Read More | Community Wires, Press Releases & BlogsMay 8, 2013
Trisha Mandes speaks to the deficiencies of U.S. food activism and proposes an adaptive way forward. Trisha has worked with community-based food projects in Oregon and Pennsylvania and is now pursuing a Masters Degree in Public Health Nutrition and Sustainable Development at the University of Eastern Finland.
Read More | UncategorizedAug 16, 2011
Envision Spokane’s Brad Read on the “Community Bill of Rights” Initiative.
Read More | UncategorizedNov 7, 2010
Blaine Township is a small rural township some 45 miles west of Pittsburgh, in Washington County, Pennsylvania. Western Pennsylvania has been mining coal for 250 years, but no mining has occurred in Blaine and its residents and township supervisors aim to keep it that way.
Read More | Community WiresOct 10, 2010
The chain that ensures an orderly society; rights have to be rooted in responsibilities.
Read More | UncategorizedAug 5, 2010
Jul 15, 2010
Jun 17, 2010
Monroe enacts local law asserting that the right of people to govern in their community is superior to legal claims that corporations are “persons” with constitutional rights.
Read More | UncategorizedFeb 20, 2010
To organize a people’s convention of delegates, representing municipal communities, who will propose constitutional changes to secure the inalienable right to local, community self-government free of state and corporate preemption.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsApr 6, 2006
The story of how two communities changed their thinking and their strategies, and became the first to adopt rights-based ordinances banning water privatization.
Read More | Community Wires, News from the GrassrootsMar 9, 2005
Early in the 20th Century, giant corporations like Woolworth’s, Sears Roebuck, J.C. Penney, Ligget, and A&P began forcing their chain stores into communities across the nation. The chains were unwelcome. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, people in towns from coast to coast banded together to stop this corporate invasion, only to be beaten back by corporations and the federal government.
Read More | Press Releases & Blogs