To protect the recently created Yosemite National Park against exploitation, John Muir founds the Sierra Club as the first grassroots environmental organization in the United States.
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The landscape designers Vaux and Olmsted draft plans for New York City’s “Central Park,” a space in which to escape the city’s noise, pollution, and crowding.
The first “Earth Day” is celebrated in the US in 1970; by 1990 it is observed worldwide.
A great drought and subsequent famine strikes Southern India from 1876–1878.
Increased European demand for rubber leads to the destruction of forests in West and Central Africa.
Since its foundation in 1980, the German Green Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) has maintained a strong environmental platform and reshaped the German political landscape.
The completion of the original Aswan Dam fundamentally changes Egypt’s irrigation system.
A severe drought hits the region of the Sahel and West African Sudan, causing widespread famines.
Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundson reaches the South Pole on 14 December 1911, making him the first person to set foot there.
Paul Sarasin delivers his address “Über die Aufgaben des Weltnaturschutzes” (On Tasks of the World Nature Protection Movement).