FracTracker Receives Cornell Douglas Pearl Award

The team at FracTracker Alliance is honored and humbled to accept the 2020 Jean and Leslie Douglas Pearl Award from the Cornell Douglas Foundation. This award reflects the Foundation’s mission to provide support to organizations like FracTracker that advocate for environmental health, justice, and sustainability.

We accept this award alongside two illustrious organizations: the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice (CREEJ), which seeks to address the root causes of poverty by seeking sustainable solutions, and Earthworks, which is dedicated to protecting communities and the environment from the adverse impacts of mineral and energy development while promoting sustainable solutions.

Since 2013, the award has recognized the work of other esteemed individuals and groups such as Marc Edwards of the Flint Water Study Team; Raina Ripple, who is a founder of the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project; SkyTruth; and many more.

About the Award

“The Jean and Leslie Douglas Pearl Award is given to organizations and to individuals who are dedicated to improving the lives of others and to providing a sustainable earth for future generations. Despite challenges which often confront the recipients, they are committed to act as catalysts for positive change, and determined to promote the rights of individuals to live in a world with clean water, air, and sustainable land. The Cornell Douglas Foundation applauds their unique vision, tenacity, and extraordinary accomplishments.”

A pearl is a piece of sand that gets embedded on the inside shell of a mollusk. It creates a blister. The animal has to process this intrusion by secreting enzymes, and over time, the grain of sand becomes a pearl. Distinct from metamorphosis, where a butterfly emerges from a cocoon suddenly and magically, the pearl is conceived first in pain, laboriously worked on, and results unexpectedly in a jewel.
-Jeanne Chiang

We are grateful for the recognition of our hard work over the years. It is truly a labor of love, for the earth and those who reside on it. Looking forward, we are reinvigorated to work alongside our partners and fellow environmental stewards in the fight for a more sustainable energy landscape, economy, and future. In all we do, FracTracker believes that the actions of informed citizens have the power to shape a better world.

The FracTracker team extends our deepest gratitude to the Cornell Douglas Foundation for this valuable support to our organization’s work. May our work continue to reflect the honorable intentions of the Jean and Leslie Douglas Pearl Award.