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Environmental Advocacy 18:0
Libertarianism or the party’s candidates. The size of the organization’s
membership and its endowment of material resources mattered less to
the outcome than the organization’s capacity to choose an issue wisely,
target political action appropriately, and time its efforts accurately.

ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY
The environmental lobby in the United States comprises about a dozen
54
interest groups with memberships of 100,000 or more, for a combined
55
totalofaround8million,alongwithseveraldozensmallergroups. Their
organizational structures vary, although most represent some variation
on the classic bureaucratic form. For instance, the Sierra Club, which is
the oldest of the groups, operates on a chapter structure, with its main
office in San Francisco managing top-priority national issues and a set of
chapters spread around the country disseminating information up and
down the organization as well as concentrating on local issues. It focuses
both on “grassroots” lobbying strategies and “inside” lobbying and legal
action. Defenders of Wildlife, on the other hand, is a smaller unitary
organization without chapters that has traditionally focused exclusively
on inside lobbying and legal action directed at issues chosen by its top
leadership. The World Wildlife Fund is similar. Like Defenders, it accepts
members, but operates as a unitary organization pursuing traditional
lobbying and legal action on national and international issues.

54 Groups with 2001 memberships of at least 100,000: the Center for Marine Conserva-
tion,DefendersofWildlife,EnvironmentalDefense,theFundforAnimals,Greenpeace
USA, National Audubon Society, National Parks Conservation Association, National
Wildlife Federation, National Resources Defense Council, the Nature Conservancy,
Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, the World Wildlife Fund (USA). Groups with
memberships between 10,000 and 100,000: American Rivers; Center for Health, En-
vironment and Justice; Earth Island Institute; Friends of the Earth; League of Conser-
vation Voters; Rainforest Action Network. Source: Foundation for Public Affairs and
Congressional Quarterly, Inc., Public Interest Profiles 2001–2002 (Washington, D.C.:
Foundation for Public Affairs, 2001).
55 This case study is based chiefly on three dozen in-person and telephone interviews,
supplemented with an examination of documents and electronic materials. The in-
terviewees include three officials of the World Wildlife Fund, six officials of Environ-
mental Defense, one official of the Sierra Club, one official of the National Resources
Defense Council, one official of the Save Our Environment Coalition, two officials of
Defenders of Wildlife, and one official of the Turner Foundation, along with fifteen
congressional staff. Names and affiliations are revealed in notes below in those cases
where informants gave permission. In some cases, informants were interviewed more
than once. Most of the research and an initial analysis of the case was prepared by Joe
Gardner, doctoral student in the Department of Political Science at UCSB.

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