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U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin ruled that Chevron has made "unduly burdensome" demands for information from ELAW.

ELAW eBulletin A federal court judge ruled that Chevron made "unduly burdensome" demands for potential evidence from ELAW. This order comes in connection with a case seeking justice for communities in Ecuador suffering the effects of oil pollution.

ELAW Advocate Winter, 2011: The Government of Peru has divided more than three quarters of the Peruvian Amazon into oil block concessions. Indigenous communities that have lived in these tropical forests for hundreds of years now face the prospect of their ancient lands becoming oil fields. ELAW partners at Derecho Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (DAR) are working with ORAU — a federation of Ashaninka, Yine, Shipibo and other ethnic communities in the Ucayali region — to help communities avoid the "oil curse."

ELAW Advocate, Autumn 2011: Clean, fresh water might be the most valuable resource on earth. Indeed, all living things need water. Yet, we do not have an infinite supply of water. The world’s six billion people are already using more than half of the planet’s accessible freshwater, while industrial emissions, destruction of wetlands and forests, and water privatization schemes threaten freshwater all over the world. Ensuring that people and ecosystems have equitable, sustainable supplies of clean water may be the greatest environmental challenge we face.

ELAW E-Bulletin: ELAW partner Hemantha Withanage sent fabulous news this week: Children in Sri Lanka will be protected from toxic lead. Sri Lanka's Consumer Affairs Authority has enacted new, stringent standards limiting the amount of lead in paint used in children's toys.

Victory in India! We are pleased to announce a big victory in India that will protect the public from excessive exposure to radiation! Last week, ELAW partner Ritwick Dutta successfully argued a case in front of India's newly formed National Green Tribunal.

Nine international ELAW visitors had the opportunity to tour NextStep Recycling's successful electronic equipment reuse and recycling facility.

ELAW and the Ems. ELAW will be the Featured Nonprofit at the Eugene Emerald's baseball game on August 4th. You can take part in a Eugene tradition and support ELAW.

ELAW Advocate, Summer 2011 After two decades, ELAW is now celebrating the arrival of the next generation of environmental leaders. ELAW partner Kenneth Kakuru from Uganda founded Greenwatch. His daughter Samantha is now on staff. Raquel Gutierrez has dedicated her life to protecting Mexico's Lake Chapala. Her son Pedro has joined her organization. Harper Johnson, daughter of ELAW Executive Director Bern Johnson, is one of many young ELAW volunteers with a passion for protecting the planet. ELAW has built an international corps of environmental defenders — 300 strong in 70 countries. We now welcome Samantha, Pedro, Harper, and the many others who are carrying on the important task of building a sustainable future, for all the world's children.

ELAW welcomes Maria Rosario Mayi to Eugene for a ten-week Fellowship. Maria works with the Dominican Republic's leading grassroots environmental law organization: Instituto de Abogados para la Protección del Medio Ambiente (INSAPROMA).

Imrich Vozár arrived Monday night from Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, for a 10-day ELAW Fellowship. This is Imrich's first visit to the U.S. He is working one-on-one with ELAW staff while finding time to explore Eugene on the ELAW bicycle.

ELAW Partner Asis Perez took the oath of office today as new director of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, the agency responsible for the improvement, management and conservation of the Philippines’ fisheries and water resources.

Whale watching in the lagoons of Baja California is a trip of a lifetime. For ELAW Fellow Fernando Ochoa, it's just another day at the office. We have been thrilled to collaborate with Fernando on his work protecting some of the world's richest whale habitat from bad development projects.

ELAW Advocate, Spring 2011 Our hearts go out to the people of Japan who are struggling to recover from the twin blows of an earthquake and tsunami on March 11. The disaster around the failure of the Fukushima nuclear facility continues to unfold. The recovery effort will continue for decades. We have worked with partners in Japan for many years, to protect communities and the environment. We recently contacted a few of these partners, to extend a hand and express our sorrow. The responses we received moved us, deeply. Naoki Ikeda, an attorney at the Osaka Branch of the Japan Environmental Lawyers Federation, gave us permission to share his response.

E-Bulletin We are saddened by the tragedy in Japan and our hearts go out to Japan's people. This painful event has opened a critical dialogue on the safety of nuclear power. Read a "Guest Viewpoint" by ELAW Staff Scientist Mark Chernaik in today's Register-Guard.

ELAW Fellows from three continents arrived on Monday to work with us to protect communities and the environment, and to participate in the 2011 Public Interest Environmental Law Conference. Yesterday, we toured NextStep Recycling, a model for e-waste recycling.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Leading environmental attorneys from Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Central and Eastern Europe will tour NextStep Recycling’s model facility in Eugene for managing electronic waste.

ELAW partner Miguel Fredes, based in Indonesia, has launched a blog for the GMO Transparency Project. Miguel has collaborated with the ELAW network since 1999.

Major Victory in the Caribbean! We teamed up with ELAW partners in Trinidad and Tobago to prevent construction of a port that would have wreaked havoc on wetlands and local fishing communities.

A writer for the local Belize newspaper, The Reporter, reviewed BELPO's Guide to Public Participation in Belize. The Guide was published in June 2010 with help from ELAW to help citizens effectively participate in decision-making processes that affect their country.

Years of hard work have paid off and residents of Murcia, Spain, will breathe easier. Toxic emissions from an asphalt roof manufacturing plant were making them sick, but just days ago, Murcia's High Court ruled that the factory must clean up its act!

Join us in welcoming Olena Kravchenko and Flaviano Bianchini, ELAW's first Fellows of 2011. Olena is the Executive Director at Ukraine's leading environmental law organization and Flaviano is a scientist with field experience monitoring extractive industries.

The world's leading grassroots advocates gathered in Punta Leona, Costa Rica for the 2010 ELAW Annual Meeting. They collaborated on new solutions to problems stemming from coastal development, climate change, use of water resources, mining, oil development, and more.

ELAW Advocate, Winter 2010: Lupita Lara's home stood in the way of plans by the government of Mexico to dam the Santiago River, near Guadalajara City, which the government of Mexico claimed would provide drinking water to Guadalajara and the surrounding areas. Unfortunately, the Santiago River is highly polluted, the dam was proposed for a protected area, and the reservoir it would have created would have flooded the community of Arcediano. Señora Lara called on ELAW partner Raquel Gutierrezto help protect her home and the village of Arcediano, and won!

Who wants to think about what happens when you flush the toilet? A visit to Jamaica’s Harbour View Sewage Treatment Plant back in the 1980s prompted ELAW partner Diana McCaulay to launch the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET).

India’s sacred Ganges River begins in the glaciers of Uttarakhand State. Big dams jeopardize communities and the fragile ecosystems of this region. Communities threatened by the proposed dams in Uttarakhand have called on ELAW partners for help.

We are pleased to welcome Yonghua Zhang, ELAW's Laurie Prosser/Xiaoli Jiang Fellow. Yonghua is an environmental attorney from Shenzhen, China. He works pro bono at the Shenzhen Legal Assistance Center to clean China's air and water, and challenge noise pollution.

The tribal people of the Niyamgiri Hills in eastern India have won a David and Goliath battle protecting their ancestral lands from a London-based mining giant! Authorities in Delhi recently denied permission for Vedanta Resources to mine bauxite from hills in Orissa State where the Dongria Kondh live as subsistence farmers.

ELAW Advocate, Autumn, 2010: The rising price of gold, nickel, bauxite and other metals means communities around the world face more pressure than ever from the mining industry. ELAW is working with partners in India, Papua New Guinea, Panama, Honduras, and other countries as mining companies claim that new and expanded mining operations will be a "win-win." In reality, mineral development is often hazardous to communities and the toxic impacts can persist for decades, even centuries.

Capital Campaign

ELAW Advocate, Summer, 2010: Around the world, people are watching the impacts of the BP/Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, concerned a similar incident might unfold along their shores. Oil consumption by the developed world is driving multinationals to explore for oil under every rock and reef. In Belize, for example nearly every inch offshore is already charted for oil development. The good news is that ELAW partners in Belize have captured the moment and joined an alliance of more than 40 organizations seeking a moratorium on oil drilling offshore and in protected areas. The Belize Coalition to Save Our Natural Heritage will draw lessons from Costa Rica and other places where public interest lawyers have effectively deterred oil development in fragile marine ecosystems.

Jean André Victor returned to Haiti where he is drawing on decades of experience, as an agronomist and a lawyer, to help turn things around.