History of the Waterkeeper Movement

Our story started in 1966 when commercial and recreational fishermen, many of them veterans, united to save their river and formed the Hudson River Fishermen's Association. These fishermen recognized that outspoken, citizen-led advocacy was the only way to ensure that laws were enforced and their river, livelihood and the health of their families were protected. They took on many of the nation's biggest industrial polluters and won. 

In 1983, they hired the first full-time Hudson Riverkeeper to patrol the river, to restore its abundant fisheries and to lead citizen-based enforcement of environmental laws. Since those early days, Hudson Riverkeeper has brought hundreds of polluters to justice and forced them to spend hundreds of millions of dollars restoring the Hudson to health. 
Their success spurred an explosive growth of similar grassroots programs across the globe, and in 1999 Waterkeeper Alliance was founded to support these programs.

Today, Waterkeeper Alliance is among the world's fastest growing environmental organizations, with over 200 Waterkeeper Organizations patrolling rivers, lakes and coastal waterways on six continents. Our proudest accomplishment is the depth and breadth of our member organizations and the unity of their vision for clean water and strong communities.

Waterkeeper Alliance strives to expand our movement significantly in the coming years, with targeted efforts from Canada to the Amazon River Basin. Recently there has been significant international growth in India, Mexico, the Amazon, and South America.

In June 2008, environmental advocacy groups from Bangladesh and Nepal successfully applied to become the first Waterkeeper organizations in those countries, adding to our presence in Asia, where we already have programs in India and China.

Our Field Coordination team has helped many prospective Waterkeeper organizations through the proposal process and has networked with a number of grassroots water advocacy groups both domestically and internationally.