Linda Sheehan is Executive Director of Planet Pledge, where she works to collaboratively advance investment and philanthropic solutions to climate change. Prior to Planet Pledge, Ms. Sheehan was Executive Director of Earth Law Center, where she advocated for governance systems that recognize the inherent rights of nature, and ran the California Coastkeeper Alliance and California office of Ocean Conservancy. In those positions, she successfully advanced federal and state bills, policies and litigation to: enforce clean water laws, publicize environmental data, curtail sewage spills, establish marine parks, prevent oil spills, create sustainable water supply strategies, and fund environmental programs. For her efforts in “fight[ing] pollution of the Pacific and the streams and rivers that flow into it,” Ms. Sheehan was recognized as a “California Coastal Hero” by Sunset Magazine and the California Coastal Commission.
Ms. Sheehan holds a BS in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MPP from U.C. Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, and a JD from U.C. Berkeley Law School. She is a member of the IUCN’s World Commission on Environmental Law and has been Summer Faculty at Vermont Law School, where she developed and taught “Earth Law.” She is a contributing author to Exploring Wild Law: The Philosophy of Earth Jurisprudence (Wakefield Press, 2011), Rule of Law for Nature (Cambridge University Press 2013), and Wild Law in Practice (Routledge 2014), with two additional book chapters expected in 2017.
Contributions to HumansandNature.org:
Time to Choose: Violate the Earth, or Create a Respectful Energy Future?
A response to “Does fracking violate human rights?”
Noteworthy Links:
- Earth Law Center
Learn more about Earth Law Center’s work on rights for nature.
