Environmental History Timeline, March 16, 1934

The "Duck Stamp Act of 1934" signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt March 16, 1934

The Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp, later renamed the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp, popularly known as the "duck stamp", is a required purchase for those who would hunt waterfowl. Anyone age sixteen or older must posses the annual Federal Duck Stamp in order to legally pursue waterfowl anywhere in the United States and Territories. The duck stamp purchase requirement was made the law of the land in order to collect dedicated funds for wetland habitat protection.

The 2013-2014 Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp.

Today, bird watchers and other conservationists, stamp collectors and, of course, hunters buy Federal Duck Stamps to grow our National Wildlife Refuge System. Stamps serve as entry passes into select federal wildlife refuges that require entry fees, too. Stamp income goes to the dedicated Migratory Bird Conservation Fund, held for the purchase and protection of habitat, not subject to appropriations politics. Duck stamp dollars protect habitat! The Federal Duck Stamp is a success story, an icon of conservation, a really big deal.

Duck Stamp money amounting to over 850 million dollars has purchased or leased over 6.5 million acres of habitat, wetlands and waterfowl production areas, during 80 years of sales.

Jay N. "Ding" Darling, celebrity cartoonist and leading conservationist, conceived of the stamp idea to raise funds for habitat protection. Ding illustrated the first stamp printed for the 1934-1935 waterfowl season. Conservationist, "Honest" Harold Ickes, FDR's legendary Secretary of Interior during the New Deal and Fair Deal years, said of Ding Darling's importance to conservation, "Darling is one of the greatest enthusiasts I have ever known."  President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had named Ding the first Director of the newly configured Bureau of Biological Survey (1934), immediate predecessor of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (1940). Ding Darling may be credited with launching much of our continuing effort to preserve wildlife habitat.

More information:
The Federal Duck Stamp Office, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, details all things Duck Stamps.
See how Federal Duck Stamp money is spent in your state.
See the evolution of Federal Duck Stamp law.
See all 80 Duck Stamp images.

Environmental History Timeline September 3, 1964

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law The Wilderness Act of 1964

Next year, September 3, 2014 is the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act of 1964. The Wilderness Bill was first introduced to the Senate by Minnesota's Senator Hubert Humphrey in 1956. Post war American growth had made new inroads deep into wild spaces. Concern grew as careless use and exploitation spread through America's remaining pristine wilderness areas.

The 88th Congress, the "conservation congress," passed the Wilderness Act establishing a Wilderness Preservation System with an initial 9 million acres set aside to secure the ecological and social benefits of an enduring wilderness resource for the American people.

benefits of an enduring wilderness resource to the American people. - See more at: http://www.pewenvironment.org/news-room/other-resources/signing-ceremony-kicks-off-celebration-of-50th-anniversary-of-wilderness-act-85899413025#sthash.TSVhqsI2.dpubenefits of  for future generations a continuing resource of wilderness.

LBJ signs Wilderness Act of 1964 into law concluding an eight year debate, credits 88th Congress, labeled "conservation congress".

Excerpt from Remarks Upon Signing the Wilderness Bill and the Land and Water Conservation Fund Bill.

"Anyone that objectively studies the record of the 88th Congress I think would have to conclude that another historic era has begun this year. If the 88th had not earned already so many honorable titles, such as the education Congress, the health Congress, the full prosperity Congress, it would be remembered as the conservation Congress, because in addition to the measures before me this morning, Congress has wisely this year passed the Ozark Rivers National Riverway bill, which I signed last week; the Fire Island National Seashore bill, which is awaiting action; the Canyonlands National Park legislation, which I expect to sign shortly, creating our first new national park on this continent in 17 years. But Congress has done even more. Action has been taken to keep our air pure and our water safe and our food free from pesticides; to protect our wildlife; to conserve our precious water resources. No single Congress in my memory has done so much to keep America as a good and wholesome and beautiful place to live. I think it is significant that these steps have broad support not just from the Democratic Party, but the Republican Party, both parties in the Congress. For example, the wilderness bill has been before the Congress since 1957, but it passed this year 73 to 12 in the Senate, and 373 to 1 in the House. So it seems to me that this reflects a new and a strong national consensus to look ahead, and, more than that, to plan ahead; better still, to move ahead. We know that America cannot be made strong by leadership which reacts only to the needs or the irritations or the frustrations of the moment. True leadership must provide for the next decade and not merely the next day. That is the kind of leadership that this Congress is providing."

Lyndon B. Johnson: "Remarks Upon Signing the Wilderness Bill and the Land and Water Conservation Fund Bill.," September 3, 1964. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=26481.

Environmental History Timeline, December 3, 1960

The "Wilderness Letter" and America's "Geography of Hope"

Writer, conservationist, Wallace Stegner submits the "Wilderness Letter," written to the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, and later reproduced in his "Wilderness Idea," in The Sound of Mountain Water (1969).  Stegner's argument for wilderness as a natural resource and more is often credited with inspiring passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964. A wilderness bill had been before Congress for eight years. Stegner's words were timely and struck a cord with the 88th Congress. Stegner's letter was used to introduce the Wilderness Act which establishes the National Wilderness Preservation System.

Minnesota wilderness, Boundary Waters 2008

West Virginia Wilderness 2005

Stegner's inspiration resulted in preservation of what Stegner called, America's "Geography of Hope," America's wilderness.

Stegner wrote,

"Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste. And so that never again can we have the chance to see ourselves single, separate, vertical and individual in the world, part of the environment of trees and rocks and soil, brother to the other animals, part of the natural world and competent to belong in it."

The full letter is reproduced at the Wilderness Society website.

Environmental History Timeline November, 1902

The Birthday of the Teddy Bear, November, 16 1902.

The Teddy Bear, early icon of wildlife conservation that has lost its historical identity and is fading from familiarity, was launched by a turn of the century cartoon. Teddy Roosevelt is illustrated eschewing taking a tethered bear, asserting sportsmanship, a fair chase offering wildlife a fair chance.

Drawing the line in Mississippi, a cartoon by Clifford Berryman, Washington Post. A jaunty T. R. eschews shooting a tethered bear cub. Berryman exaggerated an incident reported during a celebrity bear hunt held for Roosevelt in Mississippi. The first issue of same illustrated a large old bear, the cute cub is a redo. T. R. championed conservation, critics labeled his ilk "kit-gloved sportsmen."

Teddy Roosevelt, sportsman President, championed conservation of wildlife, forests and soil from his bully pulpit and launched a new era of federal conservation progress. Roosevelt rose to prominence in a muscular era of heavy industrialization and increasing urbanization. A growing U.S. population, disconnected from wilderness and even from rural experience, suffered under the overwhelming demands of unregulated robber-baron ruled heavy industry. Common experience surrounded urban workers in cacophonous industrial clatter and a haze of gagging coal and oil smoke. Hours were very long for adult and children workers in sweat shops; sanitation, health care, recreation were non-existent: a living hell. Advantaged families and social leaders watched suffering and loss from the side-lines as wild America was carried away by rail and consumed under inky smoke belched by industry. A modern lyric refrain repeats continuing American experience: "You don't know what you've got till it's gone."

Progressive social movements and a nostalgia for wilderness and pioneer experience related by still-living witnesses coalesced in a Progressive Era in politics, improvements in the workplace,  and the expanding federalism of resources conservation and of the growing sportsman conservationist movements ending widespread commercial slaughter of wildlife. The Teddy Bear was a warm fuzzy feeling for wildlife in the experience of advantaged youth in the United States and beyond.

The story of the Teddy Bear's founder entrepreneur is detailed at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Environmental History Timeline May 9, 2013

First record of average daily CO2 concentration exceeding 400 PPM

May 9, 2013, NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory recorded an average daily CO2 concentration in the atmosphere above 400 parts per million. This is not a surprise but nevertheless it's a milestone moment in atmospheric science. Charles Keeling first began measuring CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa, Hawaii in 1958, measurement continues. Graphical representation of the data, known as the Keeling Curve, illustrates seasonal variation and the global trend. Many climate scientists suggest that we must find ways to reduce CO2 to 350 PPM, the 1990 level, to avoid catastrophic ecological, social and economic outcomes during the mid 21st Century.

Keeling Curve illustration from the keepers of the data, UC San Diego

Small amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere wield disproportionate impact on surface temperatures. This phenomenon is known as the greenhouse effect. Like window glass covering a greenhouse, CO2, methane, and other heat holding compounds known as greenhouse gases allow light to pass through to earth's surface, heating things up, but capture and hold the heat in; as CO2 and other greenhouse gases increase, more heat, long-wave energy emanated from the surface, is held in the lower atmosphere by the greenhouse gases.

Proxy data from ice core and ocean sediment core chemistry tells us surface temperature has changed in the past. Oxygen isotope ratios, CO2 and other measures indicate past temperatures. The last time CO2 PPM was this high was three to five million years ago during the Pliocene Epoch, before the advent of the current Ice House Climate and its big ice sheets that recently reshaped the earth's surface. The present global C02 increase is destabilizing global climate and ecosystems due to the unprecedented rate of increase. The rate at which temperature is changing is outpacing the capacity of human and ecological systems to adapt. The current trend suggests global CO2 concentration will reach 450 PPM in the not so distant future. Atmospheric warming is expected to continue to parallel this increase. Global warming occurs most rapidly at the poles where ice is melting at unprecedented rates. More than polar bears are at risk, many are concerned that melting of permafrost is releasing trapped methane, one of the most powerful greenhouse gases. Permafrost areas are methane generators on ice. As the ice melts, methane frozen in the permafrost, and generated by increased decay of long accumulated organic materials, is liberated. Possible serious consequences are rarely discussed openly outside of knowledgeable circles and professional journals.

Regrettably, scientists who are willing to share their results and predict outcomes based on climate modelling are attacked both personally and professionally for coming out with their data and concerns. A small number of well funded conservative political groups defending fossil fuel subsidies successfully sustain a political climate of doubt around the issue. Dedicated scientists are portrayed as fear mongers and nefarious actors in grand schemes to divert public resources to their laboratories, ridiculous notions. If only climate modellers were subsidized as generously as energy producers! The press and special interest groups too often shoot the messengers. The press gives "equal time" to both sides of an artificial controversy. A tiny number of climate change deniers' voices are aired whenever new research brings the problem into focus. Just a few spokespersons associated with a handful of organizations are able to sustain doubt and controversy, though consensus opinion among science groups contradicts both doubt and controversy. It's kind of like giving equal time to a witch doctor when a new medical paper is published by researchers.

Environmental History Timeline April 22, 1970

The first Earth Day, a nationwide demonstration, April 22, 1970.

Judy Moody and Denis Hayes organizing for the first Earth Day.

The first Earth Day involved 20 million demonstrators engaged in teach-in's, sit-in's, and gatherings involving thousands of schools and communities. The scale of involvement astounded founders, the media, and the political establishment. Today, Earth Day is a global celebration inspiring conservation-related activities.

Earth Day founder Senator Gaylord Nelson wrote,

Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.

Earthrise, December 24, 1968, Apollo 8, 075:48:54 mission time. Image presented in correct mission orientation as seen by astronauts Jim Lovell, Bill Anders, and Frank Borman orbiting the stark gray moon.

The image of the first Earthrise observed by human beings and broadcast to global television viewers just seventeen months earlier is credited by many as the inspiration for the groundswell of support for the first Earth Day and the modern era of popular environmentalism. The image of our blue planet, looking small, distant, and alone in the blackness of space, delivered a paradigm shift, rendering invalid the popular perception of endless resources, endless capacity for pollution and exploitation. Earth became Spaceship Earth.

Environmental History Timeline November, 2006

Sudden honey bee colony losses alarm beekeepers, first report of colony collapse disorder (CCD)

Catastrophic honey bee colony losses reported by commercial beekeeper Dave Hackenberg in late 2006 alarmed the commercial honey bee industry. Hackenberg reported losses impacting 2200 of 3000 commercial hives at his Florida apiary. Beekeepers across North America and major segments of industrial agriculture feared widespread catastrophic honey bee losses as reports demonstrated that colony collapse was continent-wide.

Honey bees have suffered repeated sudden declines in the past, followed by rapid recoveries. More recent pathogens have delivered more serious lasting declines. The Varroa mite, a bee parasite discovered in the United States in 1987, has resulted in a 45% decline in honey bee colonies with its spread across the continent. Colony collapse disorder, so far, has followed an even more alarming pattern. CCD peaked  in many areas during 2007--2008, then eased somewhat, but crippling losses continue. CCD and a host of maladies continue to plague commercial and hobby beekeepers. Most areas see devastating 30% to 50% losses of colonies annually, depending on care, location and weather conditions. Agriculture requires immense numbers of pollinating insects, just in time*. Is agriculture at risk?

How could a spike in colony failures strike across the continent nearly simultaneously? At least half of all honey bee colonies in North America are traveling commercial pollinators. Almost all of these are trucked to the vast almond groves in California's central valley during winter, where hives from across North America potentially share pathogens, including a multitude of recently discovered bee viruses, before returning to origin apiaries. Bee viruses, vectored by the now ubiquitous Varroa mites, plague bee colonies throughout North America. Beekeepers are also concerned about the proliferation of new pesticide chemistries and technologies (possible stressors range from ubiquitous seed corn coatings, to retail suburban landscape maintenance chemicals). Multiple stressors in combination may be defeating colonies.

New agribusiness models operating at grand scales and new technologies in agriculture; nutrient delivery systems, systemic pest controls, and so on, have greatly increased acreage, acreage productivity, and agribusiness profitability in recent decades. Food production demands from the ballooning global population threaten to outstrip reliable food supply nevertheless. The future of agriculture at scale may prove to be nonlinear and unpredictable in outcomes and profitability, too much of a good thing. Already, local produce movements and clean food initiatives are bringing some purchases and profits back home to local green growers, but will there be enough pollinators left to deliver the goods? 

Honey bees are non-native, introduced to North America by colonists by 1622. Feral colonies rapidly swarmed beyond European settlements of the time. The initial 17th century ecological impacts; the losses among native bee species and other native pollinators caused by the newly introduced colonial honey bees to North America can never be known. Researchers fear that modern honey bee maladies impact native pollinators. Do ecological impacts of honey bees in North America continue?

Today, honey bees and diverse native pollinators are essential for agriculture, one out of every three mouthfuls of food consumed in North America required a pollinator to help bring it to market. A healthy diet demands healthy pollinators, whether our produce is home-grown or purchased through a supply chain from far flung mega-growers.

Honey bees cannot do it alone. Native bee species are important pollinators for agriculture and for native plant species, many of which are not effectively pollinated by honey bees. The recent honey bee crisis is occurring against a backdrop of continued long-term native bee declines. Today, both native bees and honey bees (and other native pollinators) are in crisis.

Do something for pollinators.

What can we do? Check out Pollinator Partnership.
See Scientific American 2009 CCD summary here or here.

*"just in time" is a business strategy to reduce production cost by bringing in just enough resources, just when needed. California's almond groves are manicured hectares that support local native pollinators and honey bees poorly, excepting a few weeks of almond grove bloom and a few more of stone fruit grove bloom. I stretch the just in time concept a little, herein. Honey bees are brought in to the groves for seasonal pollination services (2.5 million hives were needed for the 2013 season) in place of maintaining diverse floral support for local year 'round pollinators. During 2013, service prices per hive are rumored to have reached over $200.00 for grove owners who did not contract lower prices in advance of the colony survival projections for 2013 (colony losses expected to exceed 50% in 2013). Maybe now it will be good business to support local pollinators year 'round by re-introducing and maintaining diverse flowering plants in and around the tree groves? Trouble is, only narrow roadsides remain in major growing regions, very  limited space for native habitat restoration to take hold. How about one dedicated acre per hectare to start?

Environmental History Timeline June, 1780

David Zeisberger records the arrival of European honey bees in eastern Ohio

David Zeisberger, indomitable Moravian missionary, penned his detailed observations, knowledge and experience with Native American life ways and of wild North America during the Contact Period as tentacles of pioneer settlement fingered westward across the Alleghenies. Zeisberger cataloged wildlife in later sections of his history while at his remote mission, Schoenbruun Village, near today's New Philadelphia, Ohio, most likely completing his notes during the summer of 1780.
Zeisberger noted (page 152):

Of bees, nothing was known when we came here in '72, now they are to be found in large numbers in hollow trees in the woods.

Zeisberger's fascinating history and bestiary can be viewed online here: David Zeisberger's History of Northern American Indians.

Honey bees were, and remain, agricultural partners with Western commercial agriculture. They were introduced alongside pioneer European agriculture and alongside the many species of undesired European weeds that came with imported livestock feed and crop seeds. Westward spreading exotic flowering weed species provided essential nutrition for westward spreading honey bees. Pioneer honey bees, always just ahead  of  pioneering peoples, did not reach eastern Ohio for 150 years following introduction in Virginia by 1622.

Native American agriculture produced abundance through partnerships with native pollinators, among them, butterflies, hummingbirds, ants, flies, beetles, and our numerous species of solitary bees, small semi-colonial native ground-nesting bees, and our heavyweight pollinators, bumblebees.

More on honey bees:
Colony collapse disorder CCD
First record of honey bees imported to North America

Environmental History Timeline April, 1622

Honey bees introduced in North America by early colonists, beehives listed as ship's cargo.

Bee historian, retired USDA Apiculturist Everett Oertel summarized available information about the introduction of honey bees in North America in his article, History of Beekeeping in the United States, Agriculture Handbook, No. 335 (1971):

Information available indicates that colonies of honey bees were shipped from England and landed in the Colony of Virginia early in 1622. One or more shipments were made to Massachusetts between 1630 and 1633, others probably between 1633 and 1638. The author was not able to find any records of importing honey bees into other Colonies, but it is reasonable to assume that they were brought by the colonists to New York, Pennsylvania, Carolina, and Georgia.

Brenda Kellar, Oregon State Beekeeper's Association, assembled additional information from multiple early sources for her paper, Honey Bees Across America. At least two ships arrived in Virginia during March and April, 1622, at least one of them carried beehives, most likely the second identified only as "this Shipp", likely the Bona Nova:

The only evidence we have of the initial importation of honey bees to North America is a letter written December 5, 1621 by the Council of the Virginia Company in London and addressed to the Governor and Council in Virginia, "Wee haue by this Shipp and the Discouerie sent you diurs [divers] sortes of seedes, and fruit trees, as also Pidgeons, Connies, Peacockes, Maistiues [Mastiffs], and Beehives, as you shall by the invoice pceiue [perceive]; the preservation & encrease whereof we respond vnto you..."

Kingsbury, Susan Myra. The Records of the Virginia Company of London The Court Book, From the Manuscript in the Library of Congress 1691 -- 1622 Vol 1 and 2. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906.

Thomas Jefferson penned copious notes about agriculture and all aspects of frontier wilderness, including comments about honey bees, the "white man's fly". Accounts by Jefferson and Zeisberger (see the next blog post, 3/29/2013), together, suggest that pioneer honey bees swarmed westward ahead of pioneer settlers, first occupying broad open landscapes long managed by Native Americans, and presumably, natural prairie openings and pigeon balds--swaths of collapsed forest where vast numbers of Passenger Pigeons had nested or roosted, wherever sunshine reached the ground and abundant warm season flowering plants could be found. Honey bees became increasingly abundant and widespread with the opening of the temperate deciduous forests for European agriculture.

Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia c1781.

The honey-bee is not a native of our continent. Marcgrave indeed mentions a species of honey-bee in Brasil. But this has no sting, and is therefore different from the one we have, which resembles perfectly that of Europe. The Indians concur with us in the tradition that it was brought from Europe; but when, and by whom, we know not. The bees have generally extended themselves into the country, a little in advance of the white settlers. The Indians therefore call them the white man's fly...How far northwardly have these insects been found? That they are unkown in Lapland I infer from Schefer's information...Kalm tells us the honey bee cannot live through the winter in Canada.

 Monticello.org accessed 03/07/2013.

Environmental History Timeline June, 2002

Emerald Ash Borer discovered killing ash trees near Detroit, Michigan

Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) Agrilus planipennis, an exotic beetle thought likely to have arrived in North America in green (fresh) wooden shipping containers delivered to the Detroit area from its native Asia, begins devastating ash trees in Michigan at about the start of the new millennium. During June of 2002 extensive damage to local area ash trees is discovered. EAB larvae are found under the bark of ailing trees, disrupting these trees' transport of water and nutrients. Quarantine efforts fail to stop the invasive insect's spread. EAB's devastating history is made anew daily as ash tree death accelerates geometrically.

Today, EAB is established in two Canadian Provinces, Ohio (2003), Indiana (2004), Illinois and Maryland (2006), Pennsylvania and West Virginia (2007), Wisconsin, Missouri and Virginia (2008), Minnesota, New York, Kentucky (2009), Iowa and Tennessee (2010), Connecticut, Kansas, and Massachusetts (2012). EAB continues to expand its range, eventually killing all infected trees in three to five years: current losses of billions of ash trees have cost communities, forest owners and households many tens of millions of dollars.

Federal and state agencies are cooperating with universities in multidisciplinary efforts to slow ash mortality. The SLAM (SLow Ash Mortality) pilot project is testing methods to slow the spread in outlier forest infestations.

The marketplace offers homeowner solutions, some more effective and less toxic to non-target species than others. Valued landscape ash trees can be saved only through costly insecticide treatments: injectable TREE-age insecticide performs best, by far, according to university research. TREE-age (emamectin benzoate) remains inside professionally injected trees, greatly reducing impacts to other species. Without pesticide treatments, once infested, all ash trees of all native species are expected to die.

Ash trees are wonderful dooryard shade trees. They were planted by many homeowners and communities to replace the grand curbside elm trees that once defined so many boulevards in Midwestern towns, until the large elms themselves were lost to another foreign invader, Dutch Elm Disease. Today, urban foresters recommend diversity in selections of trees to green our streets. Single species boulevards may no longer be a responsible choice. Must global commerce equal global species?

Emerald Ash Borer
Emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire, is an exotic beetle that was discovered in southeastern Michigan near Detroit in the summer of 2002. The adult beetles nibble on ash foliage but cause little damage. The larvae (the immature stage) feed on the inner bark of ash trees, disrupting the tree's ability to transport water and nutrients. Emerald ash borer probably arrived in the United States on solid wood packing material carried in cargo ships or airplanes originating in its native Asia. Emerald ash borer is also established in Windsor, Ontario, was found in Ohio in 2003, northern Indiana in 2004, northern Illinois and Maryland in 2006, western Pennsylvania and West Virginia in 2007, Wisconsin, Missouri and Virginia in the summer of 2008, Minnesota, New York, Kentucky in the spring of 2009, Iowa in the spring of 2010, Tennessee in the summer of 2010, and Connecticut, Kansas, and Massachusetts in the summer of 2012. Since its discovery, EAB has: - See more at: http://www.emeraldashborer.info/#sthash.FK8QIdTK.NHaPRM8R.dpuf

Emerald Ash Borer
Emerald ash borer (EAB), Agrilus planipennis Fairmaire, is an exotic beetle that was discovered in southeastern Michigan near Detroit in the summer of 2002. The adult beetles nibble on ash foliage but cause little damage. The larvae (the immature stage) feed on the inner bark of ash trees, disrupting the tree's ability to transport water and nutrients. Emerald ash borer probably arrived in the United States on solid wood packing material carried in cargo ships or airplanes originating in its native Asia. Emerald ash borer is also established in Windsor, Ontario, was found in Ohio in 2003, northern Indiana in 2004, northern Illinois and Maryland in 2006, western Pennsylvania and West Virginia in 2007, Wisconsin, Missouri and Virginia in the summer of 2008, Minnesota, New York, Kentucky in the spring of 2009, Iowa in the spring of 2010, Tennessee in the summer of 2010, and Connecticut, Kansas, and Massachusetts in the summer of 2012. Since its discovery, EAB has: - See more at: http://www.emeraldashborer.info/#sthash.FK8QIdTK.NHaPRM8R.dpuf

Lean about treatment options and follow the impacts of this devastating insect invader at emeraldashborer.info.

Environmental History Timeline July, 1721

Pierre de Charlevoix reports catastrophic epidemic mortality among Native American groups, abandoned anthropogenic landscapes

Pierre de Charlevoix*, French Jesuit priest touring New France in the early 18th century, authored a dispassionate record of conditions he observed during his continent-spanning travels. Charlevoix described forests, lakes, rivers, geography, travel routes, communities among the French and among Native Americans, and the successes and failures of groups and efforts to prosper in New France. Charlevoix repeatedly comments on epidemics among Native American groups. While riding a bark canoe and camping along the west shore of Lake Michigan, Charlevoix estimated epidemic mortality in New France while writing of the...

...depopulation of all the Indian nations, who are at present reduced to less than the twentieth part of what they were one hundred and fifty years ago. If this continues we shall certainly see them entirely disappear. [vol. II page 78]

Charlevoix described fallow abandoned villages and entire landscapes left to nature by lost peoples. Late in December of 1721, near present day Baton Rouge, LA, Charlevoix discovers the ruins of an ancient village in transition to a successful plantation growing mulberry, indigo, and tobacco...

The next day, we advanced eleven leagues, and encamped a little below the Bayagoulas, which we left upon our right, after having visited the ruins of an ancient village... This was very well peopled about twenty years ago; the small pox destroyed part of the inhabitants, and the rest have dispersed in such a manner, that no accounts have been heard of them for several years, and it is doubted if so much as one single family of them is now remaining. Its situation is very magnificent, and the Messrs. Paris have now a grant here, which they planted with white mulberries, and have already raised very fine silk. They have likewise begun to cultivate tobacco and indigo with success. If the proprietors of the grants were every-where as industrious, they would soon be reimbursed their expenses. [vol. II, page 284]

Close examination of documented Contact Period conditions in North America reveal the importance and real value of Native American landscape management practices preceding and facilitating pioneer settlement and successes. Many anthropogenically managed landscapes, later found in various stages of succession, predated European settlement.

*Charlevoix, Pierre-Francois-Xavier De. Journal of a Voyage to North America. London: Dodsley., 1761.

Environmental History Timeline April, 1896

Global warming with increasing carbon dioxide predicted by Svante August Arrhenius

Swedish chemist, Nobel laureate, Svante August Arrhenius recognized the disproportionate warming capacity held by small quantities of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. He was first to connect atmospheric CO2 with climate change. Arrhenius summarized scientific opinion about the effect of CO2 (carbonic acid) in the atmosphere, predicting a global temperature increase of 8 or 9 degrees F for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. In future publications, Arrhenius was first to predict global warming must result from widespread combustion of fossil fuels causing build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere.

On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground by Svante August Arrhenius. Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, Series 5, Volume 41, April 1896, pages 237-276

Environmental History Timeline September, 1847

George Perkins Marsh delivers a foundational speech inspiring the new philosophy of managing human impacts and a cascade of founding conservation efforts in North America.

But though man cannot at his pleasure command the rain and the sunshine, the wind and frost and snow, yet it is certain that climate itself has in many instances been gradually changed and ameliorated or deteriorated by human action. George Perkins Marsh, "Address Delivered Before the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Sept. 30, 1847," page 11.

George Perkins Marsh, polymath, intellectual leader, "Prophet of Conservation"*, a US Congressman form Vermont, at the time, gave this foundational speech about the impacts of agriculture and human activity on climate, forests, soil and water to the Agricultural Society of Rutland County, Vermont.  Marsh's acclaimed speech later was published in 1848.

Marsh developed his human impacts material further for his seminal book Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action 1864. Marsh's book, still in print, is a foundational work of the conservation movement and presaged modern environmental science.


*"Prophet of Conservation" is the title of David Lowenthal's 2000 biography, George Perkins Marsh: Prophet of Conservation. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Environmental History Timeline July, 1802

Invasive jimsonweed plagues Ohio pioneers

The European plant jimsonweed Datura stramonium is found invading disturbed ground at Alexandria (West Portsmouth), Ohio and other small towns along fertile terraces of the Ohio River and at the mouth of the Scioto River. Traveling French Botanist F. A. Michaux* reports...

At Alexandria, and the other little towns in the western country, which are situated upon a very rich soil, the space between every house is almost entirely covered with Stramonium. This dangerous and disagreeable plant has propagated surprisingly in every part where the earth has been uncovered and cultivated within twelve or fifteen years; and let the inhabitants do what they will, it spreads still wider every year. It is generally supposed to have made its appearance at James-Town in Virginia, whence it derived the name Jamesweed. Travelers use it to heal the wounds made on horses' backs occasioned by the rubbing of the saddle.

*Thwaites, Reuben Gold, 1853-1913 (1904); Michaux, Andre, 1746-1802; Michaux, Francois Andre, 1770-1855; Harris, Thaddeus Mason, 1768-1842. Travels west of the Alleghanies: made in 1793-96 by Andre Michaux, in 1802 by F.A. Michaux, and in 1803 by Thaddeus Mason Harris. A.H. Clark company Cleveland.