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Justice on Earth

"Meet Erin Brockovich, minus the cleavage. This is the story of the country's last democrats, actually committed to the preposterous notion that people who aren't wealthy nonetheless have some value, that places might be important even if they aren't making money for anyone. And a hell of a story it is -- one last-ditch battle after another, a series of Davids with writs for slingshots and precedents for stones." - From the foreword by Bill McKibben

A decade ago, Earthjustice Senior Editor Tom Turner documented the early years of Earthjustice's fight to save America's wildlands in the stunning book Wild by Law. Tom has once again gathered stories and images from Earthjustice cases around the country--battles to restore rivers and clear the air, to protect old-growth forests and wildlife, to keep people safe from toxic pollution.

In his new book Justice on Earth, Tom tells the captivating, influential stories highlighting the role of citizen groups on the front lines, the native and community traditions that they are trying to maintain or restore, the honorable scientists who put their careers in jeopardy to speak the truth, and the politics that infest the process from top to bottom.

One chapter recounts a monumental crusade to stop a mining giant from reopening an old, bleeding gold mine on the border of Yellowstone National Park. Another describes efforts to heal a California river ravaged by logging and road building. In Washington, D.C., Earthjustice lawyers banded with groups in the poorer southeast neighborhoods to block massive unnecessary development along the Anacostia river. In rural northern Louisiana, it helped two tiny African-American communities stop a uranium processing plant from being built nearly on top of them. And from Hawai`i comes news of a campaign to restore water stolen from Windward O'ahu and piped westward to grow sugar, wrecking havoc on native Hawaiian communities nearly a century ago.

The stories are illustrated by powerful and evocative photographs from leading nature and wildlife photographers such as Robert Glenn Ketchum, Galen Rowell, Carr Clifton, and Frans Lanting, as well as documentary images of the places, people, and activities portrayed. Graceful and accurate original watercolor maps orient the reader in each chapter. New Yorker contributor and nature writer Bill McKibben penned the fiery forward.

Not all the stories have happy endings: the jury is still out on the fate of Oregon's old-growth forests around the Umpqua watershed, for instance. And a growing number of judges are effectively closing the courthouse doors to the public, as judicial appointments have become ever more politicized. "For the moment, though," writes Bill McKibben in his foreword, "the men and women of Earthjustice are still holed up in the Alamo, fighting like hell for the rest of us."

Justice on Earth is a book to savor for a lifetime...an ideal gift...a beautiful and lasting testament to those who fight for justice on Earth.
224 pages, 8.5 x 12 inches, 170 illustrations