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Founding of the IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature is a global organization dedicated to conserving nature and promoting sustainable use of natural resources. It is known for bringing together governments, NGO's, scientists, and local communities to develop and implement conservation strategies. They also assess species and determine whether or not they're endangered or not. -
Rachel Carson's silent spring published
Silent Spring explained how indiscriminate application of agricultural chemicals, pesticides, and other modern chemicals polluted our streams, damaged bird and animal populations, and caused severe medical problems for humans. -
Clean Air Act of 1970
This legislation authorized the development of comprehensive federal and state regulations to limit emissions from both stationary (industrial) sources and mobile sources. -
Gaia's Hypothesis
The Gaia Hypothesis proposed by James Lovelock (1972) suggests that living organisms on the planet interact with their surrounding inorganic environment to form a synergetic and self-regulating system that created, and now maintains, the climate and biochemical conditions that make life on Earth possible. -
Clean Water Act
The Clean Water Act was passed in 1972. Its goal was to make all rivers in the United States swimmable and fishable -
Chipko Movement
The Chipko movement is a forest conservation movement in India. Opposed to commercial logging and the government's policies on deforestation, protesters in the 1970s engaged in tree hugging, wrapping their arms around trees so that they could not be felled. -
Tasmanian Campaigns
n 1976 when the reservoir was flooded and the Lake Pedder battle lost, activists resolved to be more vigorous in their opposition to environmental damage in Tasmania. It was from this commitment to action that the Tasmanian Wilderness Society was formed at the house of Dr Bob Brown in 1976. -
Appiko movement
The Appiko campaign succeeded in changing government policy to ban the felling of green trees in their state. Since corporations continued to destroy large areas of the forest elsewhere, the Appiko movement has spread across India and new campaigns fighting for change continue to this day. -
Minamata
The Minamata Convention of Mercury is a multilateral environmental agreement that addresses specific human activities which are contributing to widespread mercury pollution. Implementation of this agreement will help reduce global mercury pollution over the coming decades.