[2][1] Early on, RAN worked with Herbert Chao Gunther, the founder of the Public Media Center in San Francisco, a marketing firm exclusively on social justice and environmental issues.

[1] They gained national prominence with a grassroots organizing campaign that in 1987 succeeded in convincing Burger King to cancel $31 million worth of destructive Central American rainforest beef contracts.

[6] Rainforest Action Network preserves forests, protects the climate and upholds human rights by challenging corporate power and systemic injustice through frontline partnerships and strategic campaigns.

Honorary members of RAN's board include Ali MacGraw, Bob Weir, Bonnie Raitt, Chris Noth, John Densmore and Woody Harrelson.[when?]

As a result of deforestation and the destruction of peatland for the agribusiness and pulp and paper industries, Indonesia is now the third largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in the world.

Currently, the campaign focuses on discouraging banks' financing of coal projects, and especially mountaintop removal mining (MTR), principally within the United States.

The company claims it cleaned up one third of the waste, more than its share of the agreement with Petroecuador, and the rest of the responsibility lies with the state who has had sole ownership of the oil fields since 1992.

[30] The organization’s then-Executive Director Michael Brune labeled this investigation "the latest attempt to intimidate RAN's supporters, and a part of a larger and more disturbing effort by corporate interests to stifle dissent and control free speech.