Events that changed the way we live.

1936- The last Tasmanian tiger dies in a Hobart Zoo on September 7, probably as a result of neglect after being locked out of its sleeping quarters and exposed to extreme Tasmainian weather. September 7 later becomes known as National Threatened Species Day in Australia and is used as a platform to advocate protection for other Australian spiecies facing exstinction.

1946- The International Whaling Commission is established on December 2 to promote and mainatin whale fishery atocks. The purpose of the commission is to promote cooperative measures to manage a resource rather than protect whales.

1959- The Antartic Treaty is signed amid the mounting tensions of the Cold War. It bans all military activity, nuclear testing and the dumping of radioactive waste on the frozen continent.

1962- Publication of Silent Spring, by American writer Rachel Carson, which challenges the practices of agricultural scientists and governments, and calls for a change in the way humankind views the natural world.  The book becomes the touchstone for the modern envrionmental movement.

1967- The Torrey Canyon oil tanker runs aground and spills 90,000 tonnes of oil into the sea near the English county of Cornwall.  The massive local pollution helps prompt legal changes to make the ship owners liable for all spills.

1972- The Club of Rome- a group of economists, scientists and business leaders from 25 countries- publishes The Limits to Growth, which predicts that the Earth's limts will be reached in 100 years at current rates of population growth, resource depletion, and polution generation.

1973- The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora is adopted.  Eventually, it restricts trade in about 5,000 animal species and 25,000 plant species threatened with extinction. While the treaty has a broad mandate, inadequate enforcement allows a billion-dollar black market in wildlife trade to flourish.

1974- Chemists Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina publish their landmark findings that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) can destroy ozone molecules and may erode the Earth's ozone layer.

1983- Conservationists in Australia win one of their biggest victories when the High Court overturns the Tasmainian Government's decision to dam the Gordon and Franklin Rivers. "No Dams" becomes a widely recognised slogan of the fledgling conservation movement in Australia and the Franklin River campaign becomes a template for other environmental campaigns around the country.

1986- In April, one of the four reactors at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear power plant melts down.  The explosion sends radioactive particals as far as Western Europe, exposing hundreds of thousands of people to high levels of radiation.
In July the International Whaling Commission votes to place trial moratorium on commercial whaling (until 1990).
In Australia, the Tasmainian tiger is officially declared extinct, 50 years after the last known specimen died in captivity.
Australia becomes the world's largest exporter of coal.

1987- Uluru declared a World Heritage area.

1988- The Daintree Rainforest in far north Qiueensland, oneof the world's oldest rainforests, is listed on the World Heritage register.

1989- The Exxon Valdez tanker runs aground in Alaska spilling up to 114 million litres of oil.

1991- A 50 year moratorium is placed on mining in Antartica in the form of the Madrid Protocol which declares Antartica a natural reserve devoted to peace and science.

1992- 178 countries discuss environmental issues at the Rio Earth Summit, leading to the establishment of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.

1994- The International Whaling Commmission moratorium is declared "an indefinate pause".

2002- Australia plunges into one of the worst droughts since 1950. Record temperatures exacerabte low rainfall across the country and global warming is linked to change in rainfall.
In October, the 6.5 million-hectare Heard and McDonalds Islands Marine Reserve is designated a protected area.

2003- The Australian Government announces that 33 per cent of the Great Barrier Reef will be protected.  This is more than six times the 4.5% initially protected under legislation.

2004- In November, environmental lobbying in Western Australia under the banner of the "Save Ningaloo Campaign" results in 34% of Ningaloo Reef being protected. Previously only 10% of this reef, which is home to the dugongs, migrating whale sharks and threatened sea turtles, was protected.

2005- The Kyoto Protocol becomes international law in February, after almost 180 countries agree to set up legally binding system to slow greenhouse pollution and cut global emissions by 5% by 2008-2012.  Australia and the United States, however, maintain their refusal to sign.
Popular Australian scientist Tim Flannery publishes his book on global warming, The Weather Makers, raising the profile of global warming in Australia.

2006- A total revision of Australia's premier environmental law, the EPBC Act, undermines years of conservation effort by restricting public nomination of new threatened species and inhibiting the identification of Autsralia's threatened species habitat.
Former US vice-president, Al Gore releases his documentary about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, further raising public awareness of the issue.

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