Pacific Environment
Kristen McDonald currently serves as the Senior Plastics Program Director at Pacific Environment, a position held since May 2011, where responsibilities also include the roles of Senior China Program Director and Interim Marine Program Director. Prior to this, Kristen was the Director and Co-Founder of the China Rivers Project from January 2008 to May 2011, focusing on the protection of China's river heritage and promoting river-based recreation. Kristen's earlier experience includes serving as the Wild and Scenic Rivers Program Director at American Rivers from October 1998 to August 2002 and as an English Teaching Fellow with the Yale-China Association in Changsha, Hunan, China, from September 1997 to June 1998. Kristen's academic achievements include a Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from the University of California, Berkeley (2002-2007) and a BA in Literature and Environmental Studies from Yale University (1991-1995).
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Pacific Environment
Pacific Environment empowers communities to protect their well-being and the natural world around them. We get money and expertise to the ground in challenging venues on the Pacific Rim, including China, Russia, and the Alaskan Arctic. By strengthening communities and protecting the environment in such places, we also promote transparency, public participation, and legal enforcement, which form the basis on which people can achieve lasting protection of their health and the environment. Pacific Environment offers one of the very few granting and training programs serving grassroots leaders around the Pacific Rim. At the heart of our long-term commitment to community-led environmental activism is a comprehensive support program. The community leaders and groups we partner with consistently tell us that the value we provide stems from three things: 1) giving them financial and mentoring support; 2) bringing them together in coordinated networks; and 3) supplying much needed expertise for their campaigns (e.g., technical, scientific, legal). Over three decades we have nurtured more than 150 grassroots organizations around the Pacific Rim and provided millions of dollars. In turn, the networks we foster create concentric ripples outward to many more people and organizations that ally together to undertake public education, litigation, media outreach, large-scale advocacy campaigns, and sophisticated policy work. To complement these community efforts, Pacific Environment has developed substantial expertise in global policy venues typically beyond the reach of local leaders. For example, we have obtained one of the few seats available to NGOs at the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a U.N. agency that writes the rules for the high seas. We use this seat to advocate for rules that protect marine mammals and indigenous food security, curb greenhouse gas emissions, and protect Arctic waters from the dangers of catastrophic oil spills.