Archives West Finding Aid

Friends of the Earth (FoE) and their cohort of 77 grassroots groups form one of the world’s largest environmental networks. FoE campaigns on current urgent environmental and social issues. Former Sierra Club director, David Brower, founded FoE in September 1969. FoE set up its headquarters in San Francisco with an office in Washington, D.C. (headquarters were moved to Washington, D.C. in 1986). FoE quickly expanded internationally with the 1971 creation of a loose federation of sister organizations designated “Friends of the Earth International.” FoE expanded further when the Washington staff spun off to form two new organizations, the League of Conservation Voters in 1970 and the Environmental Policy Center in 1972, which later became the Environmental Policy Institute (EPI). Both organizations were founded by FoE staffer Brent Blackwelder, who in 1994 became director of FoE. A large portion of the collection is Blackwelder’s research material and correspondence produced during his years with FoE. After its founding, FoE was quick to take on existing environmental issues by campaigning against the Alaska pipeline, the supersonic transport airplane (SST), nuclear power, and the use of the defoliant Agent Orange in the Vietnam War. Later, FoE led the opposition to Interior secretary James G. Watt’s efforts to sell and lease public lands in the West and develop land adjacent to the National Parks. More recent issues have been cruise industry pollution, ozone protection, genetically engineered agricultural products, energy industry mining and drilling practices, and World Bank and International Monetary Fund funding of environmentally harmful projects worldwide. One of FoE’s more enduring efforts is the Green Scissors campaign which was launched in 1993 to cut anti-environmental federal spending from the budget. Another is the publication of its news magazine, Not Man Apart, which began in 1970 and continued until the 1990s. FoE has merged with other environmental organizations over the years including EPI and the Oceanic Society in 1989 and the Bluewater Network in 2007.