| 1804-06 |
George Perkins Marsh publishes Man and Nature; Yosemite Valley becomes a California State Park.
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| 1872 |
Congress creates the first national park in the United States, Yellowstone.
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| 1890 |
The U. S. Bureau of the Census announces that the frontier has ceased to exist; Yosemite National Park is established.
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| 1892 |
John Muir and others found the Sierra Club.
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| 1905 |
The National Audubon Society is organized.
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| 1908 |
The Grand Canyon of the Colorado River is made a national monument.
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| 1913 |
Muir and the conservationists lose the battle to preserve the Hetch Hetchy Valley.
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| 1916 |
The National Park Service is organized.
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| 1935 |
The Wilderness Society is founded by Bob Marshall and others to fight for the preservation of natural areas.
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| 1949 |
Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac is Published.
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| 1951 |
The Nature Conservancy is founded and begins buying tracts of ecologically vital land.
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| 1955 |
Congress passes the first Clean Air Act.
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| 1962 |
Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring is published.
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| 1964 |
Congress passes the Wilderness Preservation Act, which allows areas to be held aside from development and commercial activity.
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| 1964 |
Paul Ehrlich publishes The Population Bomb.
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| 1969 |
Friends of the Earth is founded.
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| 1970 |
The first Earth Day takes place in the United States; Congress creates the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and passes the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), and the Solid Waste Disposal Act, and an amended Clean Air Act; the National Resources Defense Council and Zero Population Growth are founded.
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| September 1970 |
Congress passes PL 91-516, The Environmental Education Act
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| 1971 |
Greenpeace is organized in Canada.
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| 1972 |
The League of Conservation Voters is founded; Congress passes the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Ocean Dumping Act, and the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).
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| August 1972 |
The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, recommends in its Stockholm Declaration and Action Plan that every nation promote environmental education program development.
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| 1973 |
The Endangered Species Act is passed to protect rare species and habitats.
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| May 1973 |
The Alliance for Environmental Education is formed to coordinate and promote national-level cooperation among organizations and agencies in their environmental education efforts.
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| 1974 |
Congress passes the Safe Drinking Water Act.
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| July 1975 |
The National Snowmass Conference: Environmental Education Perspectives and Prospectives produced two reports: Environmental Education: Perspectives and Prospectives: Key Findings and Major Recommendations; and Environmental Education: Perspectives and Prospectives: Supporting Documentation (Schafer and Disinger, 1975) These reports recommend roles and responsibilities for elementary, secondary, and higher education; state governments; the federal government; industry, labor, and business; and organizations.
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| October 1975 |
UNESCO organizes an international workshop on environmental education in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, which produces a statement of need, goals, objectives, and guiding principles for developing environmental education programs, The Belgrade Charter. It is accompanied by a long list of recommendations.
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| 1976 |
Congress passes the Toxic Substances Control Act (TOSCA) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RECRA).
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| September-November 1976 |
Six regional workshops are held around the world to react to The Belgrade Charter and its recommendations. One such workshop, the North American Seminar on Environmental Education, was held in St. Louis, Missouri.
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| October 1977 |
The World's First Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education is organized by UNESCO and is held in Tbilisi, Georgia, USSR. It produces a refined statement of need, goals, objective categories, and guiding principles for environmental education program development, The Tbilisi Declaration. An extensive set of recommendations accompany the declaration. One recommendation urges each nation to hold its own national leadership conference on environmental education.
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| 1977 |
Congress writes and strengthens laws dealing with clean air and water.
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| 1978 |
Toxic waste contamination is found at Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York; the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is formed.
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| March 1978 |
A National Leadership Conference on Environmental Education is conducted in Washington, D.C. The report of this conference, From Ought to Action in Environmental Education (Stapp, 1978), includes sixteen recommendations targeted to groups at national, state, and local levels. One recommendation of the report for states urges that the goals and objectives of environmental education be further clarified for use by educators, and that mechanisms for achieving these goals be identified to encourage educators to utilize the total environment in all curriculum areas in program development and implementation.
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| 1980 |
Congress passes the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund) and the Alaska National Interest Lands Act.
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| 1981 |
Dave Foreman and others found Earth First!; Lois Gibbs organizes the Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste.
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| May 1982 |
The World Community of States assembles in Nairobi, Kenya, under the sponsorship of the United Nations Environment Programme, and reaffirms its commitment to the Stockholm Declaration and Action Plan. It issues the Nairobi declaration, a call for increased concern and activity to address problems of the global environment.
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| August 1983 |
The First National Congress for Environmental Education Futures: Policies and Practices brings together more than 30 environmental education organizations to assess the effect and degree of implementation of the recommendations of the 1978 National Leadership Conference on Environmental Education. It produces a report containing a new set of recommendations for action and proposes similar meetings at no less than five year intervals (Gustafson, 1983).
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| 1987 |
Congress passes the National Parks Overflight Act to reduce noise at certain parks, including the Grand Canyon.
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| August 1987 |
Our Common Future is written by Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former prime minister of Norway. The book is based on the Brundtland Report written from the World Commission on Environment and Development. Brundtland's book is best known as the source of the concept of "sustainable development."
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| June 1989 |
Conference about "The Fate and Hope of the Earth," is held in Manague, Nicaragua. A special report is published, "Women's Environmental Network, Environment, Development Seminar Report (London: Women's Environmental Network, 1989)
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| 1990 |
Two hundred million people in one hundred forty countries participate in the twentieth anniversary of Earth Day
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| June 1992 |
The United Nations convenes its "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro to discuss global planning for a sustainable future.
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| July 1992 |
Global Forum (UNCED) held parallel to Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Women's Planeta Femea conference generate two reports, "Adopt a Global Women's Treaty for a Just and Healthy Planet," and "Agenda 21 Defines the Role of Women in Sustainable Development."
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| 1994 |
Congress passes the California Desert Protection Act.
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| September 1994 |
A United Nations summit is held on establishing new paradigms to control population. Nations of the world agree on population policy for the 21st century.
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| 1995-1996 |
The US national parks close for several weeks at the end of 1995 and the beginning of 1996 because of disagreements between congress and the United States president about the US federal budget.
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| June 1997 |
A United Nations "Earth Summit" is held in New York to discuss environmental policy set at the Rio de Janeiro summit and to advance implementation strategies.
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