Animal Welfare

The injustice done to animals big and small is inexcusable and the Nature Defense Foundation supports organizations that seek to care for, protect, rescue, rehab, and introduce back to their natural habitat. Our animal welfare pillar of ethics involves both wild animals and factory-farmed animals. Wild animals such as birds are a critical link to our world and deserve to be protected under the law. Similarly, farm animals deserve the opportunity to live and die free. Overall, NDF seeks to use its resources to heal the relationship between people and animals. 

Environmental Protection

A better world is a biodiverse world. Nature Defense Foundation uses its resources to protect and actively conserve the native flora and fauna of California and the Hawaiian Islands. In addition to directly supporting national parks, land trusts, indigenous lands, and nature preserves we support conservation stewards within their communities. Environmental education is the blueprint for the future if we are to productively manage our changing climate. Healthy soil also falls under this pillar as it is what supports us all. We believe that organic, no-till farming and permaculture design is paving a way for a new food system that provides justice for the natural world and the human one. NDF believes in the importance of strategic community planning to ensure that the public sector develops appropriate and effective plans, policies, and procedures to address important environmental concerns that result in strong, diverse, and culturally vibrant neighborhoods.

Sustainable Energy

By limiting our carbon footprint we can solve problems that aren’t just climate-related but socio-economically relevant. Jobs in sustainable energy could heal our climate and community holistically. There is so much that has yet to be researched and so much yet to be funded. From biodiesel to compost NDF uses its resources to foster new relationships with alternative ways of interacting with our environment sustainably.