Art Cooley

Arthur P. Cooley was an American biology teacher, naturalist and expedition leader, and a co-founder of the Environmental Defense Fund. In the mid-1960s, while a teacher at Bellport High School on New York's Long Island, Cooley was one of several local activists who came together to stop the use of the pesticide/pollutant DDT by the Suffolk County Mosquito Control Commission. From that successful collaboration emerged the Environmental Defense Fund, a non-profit environmental advocacy group.