Focus Area: Healthy Communities

Sep 17, 2025

New Bedford Board of Health Rejects Trash Facility

Neighbors organized, educated, and supported one another every step of the way. No one should have to fight this hard just to be safe in their own neighborhood – but they did, and they won.

trash can filled with plastic waste
Sep 15, 2025

Conservation Matters: Fall 2025

The people leading the fight in communities across New England aren’t backing down now. Neither is CLF. Our commitment to justice – and our communities – is unwavering.

Magazine cover showing a child drawing a house with chalk. Text reads Conservation Matters, a journal of Conservation Law Foundation. What is Environmental Justice.
Aug 21, 2025

The Fight Against Toxic Air

“We carry a huge air pollution burden, indoors and outdoors,” says Rusty Polsgrove, associate director of Arise for Social Justice, a Springfield environmental justice organization dedicated to defending the rights of the city’s low-income residents. Polsgrove says that Springfield, with its historic districts, diversity, and easy urban-suburban amenities, has been unfairly saddled with an environmental problem that can overshadow the city’s many positive attributes.

aerial view of Springfield, MA
Jul 09, 2025

Two Stories, A Scent of Déjà Vu

Across regions, people are standing up for their health, culture, and environment – pushing back on unjust waste infrastructure and reclaiming power over their communities’ futures. In Old Town, Maine, and New Bedford, Massachusetts, residents are confronting a familiar pattern – and showing what it takes to break the cycle and build lasting change.

Aerial view of Juniper Ridge Landfill in Maine, central to ongoing environmental justice concerns.
Jun 19, 2025

What Juneteenth Reminds Me About Sustainability and Food Security

Conservative media and even some conservation spaces want you to believe that Black people don’t care about the environment, nor do they vote for the environment. I find that ironic, considering I was raised by farmers and environmentalists on both sides of my family. They cared about taking care of the environment because it was the only thing they had.