Policy Issues & Action

For over a century, Audubon has been a leading voice encouraging conservation of precious habitat and wildlife for future generations. Audubon's earliest noted success came in 1900, when members urged Congress to pass legislation making interstate trafficking of illegally killed birds and animals a crime, while prohibiting the importation of non-native and potentially invasive species.

Of the 1.3 billion acres of privately owned land in the United States, 878 million acres are in cropland, pasture, range, farmsteads, and farm roads. Agricultural practices have a huge impact on birds, wildlife, habitat and the environment and Audubon's agricultural policy program focuses on the environmental impacts of agriculture.

Leading scientists around the world agree that man-made greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels are causing global warming. Effects are already being seen worldwide. Long-term consequences are devastating, and solutions are harder to attain each day we fail to act.

Protecting and restoring important ecosystems: the Mississippi River, the Everglades, Long Island Sound, the Great Lakes, and more.

An Essential Safety Net

The Endangered Species Act is one of our cornerstone environmental laws. By listing species as threatened or endangered, identifying critical habitat and taking other steps to help them recover, there are many endangered species success stories. From the American Bald Eagle to the American Alligator, the Endangered Species Act works.

Whether it be money for listing endangered species, funding for large-scale restoration projects in the Coastal Louisiana, or increasing the budget for maintaining National Wildlife Refuges, the annual process whereby Congress funds conservations programs is critical to protecting birds, wildlife and habitat.

Population and Habitat: Making the Connection

Stop the Alien Attack.  Imagine aliens —taking the shape of a seemingly harmless plant or small animal—coming into your community and taking over. They no longer face threats from their natural enemies, so they thrive—ravaging native plants, birds and other wildlife, significantly altering the ecosystem. These aliens aren't from outer space—they're Earth-born and bred, and they're infesting more than 100 million acres of American landscape.

Energy conservation and other energy-related measures can do much to get us down the path of a clean energy future and help break our country's reliance on dirty, damaging fossil fuels.