Mission

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is building a movement for Community Rights and the Rights of Nature to advance democratic, economic, social, and environmental rights - building upward from the grassroots to the state, federal, and international level.

Our mission is to build sustainable communities by assisting people to assert their right to local self-government and the rights of nature.

What We Do

Through grassroots organizing, public education and outreach, and legal assistance, CELDF brings communities and groups together to form statewide Community Rights Networks to drive change from the grassroots upward to the state and federal level. Nearly 200 municipalities across the U.S. have enacted CELDF-drafted Community Rights laws which ban practices that violate the rights of people, communities and nature - including fracking, aerial pesticide spraying, factory farming, sewage sludging of farmland, and water privatization.