ABOUT the John Muir Project

The John Muir Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to placing all federal public forest lands in the United States beyond the reach of commercial exploitation, just as John Muir envisioned over a century ago. Our immediate goal is to end all timber sales on federal public lands nationwide and redirect the timber subsidies into worker retraining, ecological restoration, and reduction of the national debt.


OUR HISTORY

The John Muir Project is a project of Earth Island Institute (EII), a nonprofit environmental organization founded by David Brower. Earth Island Institute was founded in 1982 with the mission of developing and supporting projects that counteract threats to the biological and cultural diversity that sustains the environment. These Projects create a consortium of grassroots campaigns that operate independent from one another yet benefit from collective experience and ideas. Earth Island provides these Projects with administrative support and operates as their fiscal sponsor. In the Spring of 1997, under the guidance of David Brower, Mr. Chad Hanson and Mr. David Orr became part of the Earth Island consortium when they launched the John Muir Project.


OUR APPROACH

Three principles guide our work:

1. We look at the big picture. By examining the entire timber sale program instead of just one fragment, we can see how costly and destructive it is, and our solution becomes clear: end the program. Through this approach we have changed the debate from "how much should our national forests be logged" to "should they be logged at all."
2. We look at all the angles. Forest policy in the United States is equal parts unethical, environmentally destructive, personally disempowering, and fiscally irresponsible. Our Project staff can address the public's concerns and questions in all of these areas, and then work to meet our achievable goals.
3. We want the public to be involved. For policy to change, people must feel a connection to those lands being held for them by the government. We strive to educate and empower communities, working with schools, churches, and families in addition to other political or environmental groups. We want the decision-making power over public lands in this country to move from Congress to local neighborhoods.