Following the emergence of its colonial forest service, France establishes the first forest reserves to manage the precious tropical rain forests in Cochinchina (present-day Vietnam).
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The Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains become Australia’s first landscape reservation.
The Suez Canal is completed under French supervision and becomes one of the world’s most important waterways.
The completion of this infrastructure leads to lasting controversy over the severe deterioration in the flow of the Ganges and the decay of the river as an inland waterway.
The introduction of rabbits to Australia led to significant loss of other species.
Guano, one of the main export goods in South America in the mid-nineteenth century, becomes a central cause of the Chincha Islands War.
The eruption of this volcano kills over 150 people and transforms the landscape of New Zealand’s North Island.
Peru nationalizes its guano reserves, beginning a period historians refer to as “the guano age.”
The flood kills more than 2,200 people. In 1889 this was the greatest loss of civilian life in US history.
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.