Environmental Movement Timeline

The Sea Birds Preservation Act was passed in 1869 as the first nature protection law in the world, influenced by growing support from suburban middle-class conservation societies.

Image source: Sea Birds Preservation Act 1869

Although there were earlier pieces of legislation, the Public Health Act 1875 required all furnaces and fireplaces to consume their own smoke, addressing severe air pollution in industrial Britain.

The organisation obtained secure footing through the 1907 National Trust Bill, which gave the trust the status of a statutory corporation; the bill was passed in August 1907.

The Public Health Act's provisions were extended in 1926 with the Smoke Abatement Act to include other emissions such as soot, ash, and gritty particles, and to empower local authorities to impose their own regulations.

In 1933 the German government created a stringent animal-protection law, followed in 1934 by Das Reichsjagdgesetz (The Reich Hunting Law), which limited hunting.

Image source: Animal welfare in Nazi Germany

In 1935, the Nazi regime enacted the Reich Nature Protection Act (Reichsnaturschutzgesetz), one of several environmental laws passed during this period in Germany.

Saudi Arabia was the first Arab country to establish environmental law in 1992, followed by Egypt in 1994, marking the beginning of formal environmental regulation in the Arab world.

Image source: Environmental law

In 2022, a court in South Africa confirmed the constitutional right of the country's citizens to an environment that is not harmful to their health, which includes the right to clean air.

During the Spanish Revolution in 1936, anarchist-controlled territories undertook several environmental reforms, which were possibly the largest in the world at the time.

Image source: Spanish Revolution of 1936

The first seed of an environmental movement in India was the foundation in 1964 of Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh, a labour cooperative started by Chandi Prasad Bhatt.

Image source: Chipko movement

After the International Environmental Conference in Stockholm in 1972, Latin American officials returned with high hopes of growth and protection of the fairly untouched natural resources of their region.

The Chipko movement starting in 1974 followed the foundation of Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh, with villagers embracing trees to prevent logging, becoming an iconic example of nonviolent ecoactivism in India.

Pro-Natura International is a private environmental organization created in 1986, working on conservation issues internationally.

Funatura was created in 1986 and is a Brazilian wildlife sanctuary program dedicated to protecting the country's biodiversity.

The Blue Wave Foundation was created in 1989 and has partnered with advertising companies to promote national education campaigns to keep Brazil's beaches clean.

In 1992, Brazil came under scrutiny with the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, a landmark global summit on sustainable development.

Image source: Earth Summit

In 2008, the Eco Revolution movement was started by Eco Needs Foundation, continuing the growth of grassroots environmental activism.

The contemporary environmental movement's roots can be traced back to Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring, along with Murray Bookchin's Our Synthetic Environment published the same year. Carson became one of the most influential individual advocates of the 20th-century movement.

Image source: Silent Spring

Paul R. Ehrlich's 1968 book The Population Bomb helped shape the contemporary environmental movement, warning of the consequences of unchecked population growth.

Image source: The Population Bomb

From 1973 to the 1990s, and then in the 2000s, indigenous communities and rubber tappers in Latin America carried out blockades that protected much rainforest from destruction.

In the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, many mass demonstrations took place against nuclear power across the United States.

Image source: Three Mile Island accident

The largest post-Three Mile Island demonstration was held in New York City in September 1979 and involved 200,000 people protesting nuclear power.

Image source: Anti-nuclear movement in the United States

The most severe single event underpinning the Indian environmental movement was the Bhopal gas leakage on 3 December 1984, a catastrophic industrial disaster that galvanized environmental activism in India.

Image source: Bhopal disaster

Also notable is the Yellow Finch tree sit, which was a 932-day blockade of the Mountain Valley Pipeline from 2018 to 2021, demonstrating sustained direct-action ecoactivism.

Image source: Mountain Valley Pipeline