Environment, Law and Development Foundation (ELDF)

The Environment Law and Development Foundation was set up under the aegis of the Enviro Legal Defence Firm. From our experience over the last two decades, we feel that the current needs and opportunities require us to make a step change in the structure and role of the organization. In particular, we feel much of today’s research does not clearly identify the environmental issue it wishes to address or provide clear steps to its solution. Many of the cases or legal conflicts, which come to us, are last minute, badly prepared or unfocused. We would wish therefore to be more proactive in our research, policy work, and training, whilst being more strategic in our litigation. The Foundation has therefore become the research and training arm of the enviro legal sector, whilst the law firm would pursue issues through litigation, either through victim-lead cases or public interest litigation (PIL). It is believed that the existence of both organizations would be highly beneficial in addressing environmental challenges in India for the reasons mentioned above. The research could feed the litigation, whilst the litigation could feed the research-a system of practice. Correspondingly, we have a number of conceptual ideas of activities that could be taken up on a proactive basis by the Foundation for which there may not be ready “clients” through the law firm approach.