"En la defensa de los animales, el odio no es el camino"

Early history

The conservation movement can be traced back to John Evelyn's work Sylva, presented as a paper to the Royal Society in 1662. Published as a book two years later, it was one of the most highly influential texts on forestry ever published.[2] Timber resources in England were becoming dangerously depleted at the time, and Evelyn advocated the importance of conserving the forests by managing the rate of depletion and ensuring that the cut down trees get replenished.
The field developed during the 18th century, especially in Prussia and France where scientific forestry methods were developed. These methods were first applied rigorously in British India from the early-19th century. The government was interested in the use of forest produce and began managing the forests with measures to reduce the risk of wildfire in order to protect the "household" of nature, as it was then termed. This early ecological idea was in order to preserve the growth of delicate teak trees, which was an important resource for the Royal Navy. Concerns over teak depletion were raised as early as 1799 and 1805 when the Navy was undergoing a massive expansion during the Napoleonic Wars; this pressure led to the first formal conservation Act, which prohibited the felling of small teak trees. The first forestry officer was appointed in 1806 to regulate and preserve the trees necessary for shipbuilding.[3] This promising start received a setback in the 1820s and 30s, when laissez-faire economics and complaints from private landowners brought these early conservation attempts to an end.
Origins of the modern conservation movement
Conservation was revived in the mid-19th century, with the first practical application of scientific conservation principles to the forests of India. The conservation ethic that began to evolve included three core principles: that human activity damaged the environment, that there was a civic duty to maintain the environment for future generations, and that scientific, empirically based methods should be applied to ensure this duty was carried out. Sir James Ranald Martin was prominent in promoting this ideology, publishing many medico-topographical reports that demonstrated the scale of damage wrought through large-scale deforestation and desiccation, and lobbying extensively for the institutionalization of forest conservation activities in British India through the establishment of Forest Departments.[4] Edward Percy Stebbing warned of desertification of India. The Madras Board of Revenue started local conservation efforts in 1842, headed by Alexander Gibson, a professional botanist who systematically adopted a forest conservation program based on scientific principles. This was the first case of state management of forests in the world.[5]
These local attempts gradually received more attention by the British government as the unregulated felling of trees continued unabated. In 1850, the British Association in Edinburgh formed a committee to study forest destruction at the behest of Dr. Hugh Cleghorn a pioneer in the nascent conservation movement.
He had become interested in forest conservation in Mysore in 1847 and gave several lectures at the Association on the failure of agriculture in India. These lectures influenced the government under Governor-General Lord Dalhousie to introduce the first permanent and large-scale forest conservation program in the world in 1855, a model that soon spread to other colonies, as well the United States. In the same year, Cleghorn organised the Madras Forest Department and in 1860 the Department banned the use shifting cultivation.[6] Cleghorn's 1861 manual, The forests and gardens of South India, became the definitive work on the subject and was widely used by forest assistants in the subcontinent.[7] In 1861, the Forest Department extended its remit into the Punjab.[8]

Schlich, in the middle of the seated row, with students from the forestry school at Oxford, on a visit to the forests of Saxony in the year 1892.
Sir Dietrich Brandis, a German forester, joined the British service in 1856 as superintendent of the teak forests of Pegu division in eastern Burma. During that time Burma's teak forests were controlled by militant Karen tribals. He introduced the "taungya" system,[9] in which Karen villagers provided labour for clearing, planting and weeding teak plantations. After seven years in Burma, Brandis was appointed Inspector General of Forests in India, a position he served in for 20 years. He formulated new forest legislation and helped establish research and training institutions. The Imperial Forest School at Dehradun was founded by him.[10][11]
Germans were prominent in the forestry administration of British India. As well as Brandis, Berthold Ribbentrop and Sir William P.D. Schlich brought new methods to Indian conservation, the latter becoming the Inspector-General in 1883 after Brandis stepped down. Schlich helped to establish the journal Indian Forester in 1874, and became the founding director of the first forestry school in England at Cooper's Hill in 1885.[12] He authored the five-volume Manual of Forestry (1889–96) on silviculture, forest management, forest protection, and forest utilisation, which became the standard and enduring textbook for forestry students.
Conservation in the United States

F. V. Hayden's map of Yellowstone National Park, 1871.
Main article: Conservation in the United States
The American movement received its inspiration from 19th century works that exalted the inherent value of nature, quite apart from human usage. Author Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) made key philosophical contributions that exalted nature. Thoreau was interested in peoples' relationship with nature and studied this by living close to nature in a simple life. He published his experiences in the book Walden, which argued that people should become intimately close with nature. The ideas of Sir Brandis, Sir William P.D. Schlich and Carl A. Schenck were also very influential - Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the USDA Forest Service, relied heavily upon Brandis' advice for introducing professional forest management in the U.S. and on how to structure the Forest Service.[13][14]
Both Conservationists and Preservationists appeared in political debates during the Progressive Era (the 1890s—early 1920s). There were three main positions. The laissez-faire position held that owners of private property—including lumber and mining companies, should be allowed to do anything they wished for their property.[15]
The conservationists, led by future President Theodore Roosevelt and his close ally George Bird Grinnell, were motivated by the wanton waste that was taking place at the hand of market forces, including logging and hunting.[16] This practice resulted in placing a large number of North American game species on the edge of extinction. Roosevelt recognized that the laissez-faire approach of the U.S. Government was too wasteful and inefficient. In any case, they noted, most of the natural resources in the western states were already owned by the federal government. The best course of action, they argued, was a long-term plan devised by national experts to maximize the long-term economic benefits of natural resources. To accomplish the mission, Roosevelt and Grinnell formed the Boone and Crockett Club in 1887. The Club was made up of the best minds and influential men of the day. The Boone and Crockett Club's contingency of conservationists, scientists, politicians, and intellectuals became Roosevelt's closest advisers during his march to preserve wildlife and habitat across North America.[17] Preservationists, led by John Muir (1838–1914), argued that the conservation policies were not strong enough to protect the interest of the natural world because they continued to focus on the natural world as a source of economic production.
The debate between conservation and preservation reached its peak in the public debates over the construction of California's Hetch Hetchy dam in Yosemite National Park which supplies the water supply of San Francisco. Muir, leading the Sierra Club, declared that the valley must be preserved for the sake of its beauty: "No holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man."
President Roosevelt put conservationist issue high on the national agenda.[18] He worked with all the major figures of the movement, especially his chief advisor on the matter, Gifford Pinchot and was deeply committed to conserving natural resources. He encouraged the Newlands Reclamation Act of 1902 to promote federal construction of dams to irrigate small farms and placed 230 million acres (360,000 mi2 or 930,000 km2) under federal protection. Roosevelt set aside more federal land for national parks and nature preserves than all of his predecessors combined.[19]
Roosevelt was a leader in conservation, fighting to end the waste of natural resources
Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five national parks, and signed the year 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new national monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 national forests, including Shoshone National Forest, the nation's first. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately 230,000,000 acres (930,000 km2).
Gifford Pinchot had been appointed by McKinley as chief of Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture. In 1905, his department gained control of the national forest reserves. Pinchot promoted private use (for a fee) under federal supervision. In 1907, Roosevelt designated 16 million acres (65,000 km2) of new national forests just minutes before a deadline.[20]
In May 1908, Roosevelt sponsored the Conference of Governors held in the White House, with a focus on natural resources and their most efficient use. Roosevelt delivered the opening address: "Conservation as a National Duty.".
In 1903 Roosevelt toured the Yosemite Valley with John Muir, who had a very different view of conservation, and tried to minimize commercial use of water resources and forests. Working through the Sierra Club he founded, Muir succeeded in 1905 in having Congress transfer the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley to the federal government.[21] While Muir wanted nature preserved for its own sake, Roosevelt subscribed to Pinchot's formulation, "to make the forest produce the largest amount of whatever crop or service will be most useful, and keep on producing it for generation after generation of men and trees."[22]
Theodore Roosevelt's view on conservationism remained dominant for decades; - Franklin D. Roosevelt authorised the building of many large-scale dams and water projects, as well as the expansion of the National Forest System to buy out sub-marginal farms. In 1937, the Pittman–Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act was signed into law, providing funding for state agencies to carry out their conservation efforts.

7th century
630s — Caliph Abu Bakr commanded his army: "Bring no harm to the trees, nor burn them with fire, especially those which are fruitful. Slay not any of the enemy's flock, save for your food."[1]
676 — Cuthbert of Lindisfarne enacts protection legislation for birds on the Farne Islands (Northumberland, UK).
9th–13th centuries
Arabic medical treatises dealing with environmentalism and environmental science, including pollution, were written by Al-Kindi, Qusta ibn Luqa, Al-Razi, Ibn Al-Jazzar, al-Tamimi, al-Masihi, Avicenna, Ali ibn Ridwan, Ibn Jumay, Isaac Israeli ben Solomon, Abd-el-latif, Ibn al-Quff, and Ibn al-Nafis. Their works covered a number of subjects related to pollution, such as air pollution, water pollution, soil contamination, municipal solid waste mishandling, and environmental impact assessments of certain localities.[2]
Cordoba, Al-Andalus, had waste containers and waste disposal facilities for litter collection.[3][4]
13th century
1272 — King Edward I of England banned the burning of sea-coal by proclamation in London, after its smoke had become a problem.[5][6]
14th century
1366 — The city of Paris forces butchers to dispose of animal wastes outside the city (Ponting)
1388 — The English Parliament passes an act forbidding the throwing of filth and garbage into ditches, rivers and waters. The city of Cambridge also passes the first urban sanitary laws in England
15th century
1420 to 1427, Madeira islands : destruction of the laurisilva forest, or the woods which once clothed the whole island when the Portuguese settlers decided to clear the land for farming by setting most of the island on fire.[7] It is said that the fire burned for seven years.
17th century
1609 — Hugo Grotius publishes Mare Liberum (The Free Sea) with arguments for the new principle that the sea was international territory and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade. The ensuing debate had the British empire and France claim sovereignty over territorial waters to the distance within which cannon range could effectively protect it, the three mile (5 km) limit.
1640 — Isaac Walton writes The Compleat Angler about fishing and conservation.
1690 — Colonial Governor William Penn requires Pennsylvania settlers to preserve 1-acre (4,000 m2) of trees for every five acres cleared.
— The last Mauritius dodo dies. The extinction was due to hunting, but also by the pigs, rats, dogs and cats brought to the island by settlers. Later the species has become an icon on animal extinction.[8]
18th century
1711 — Jonathan Swift notes the contents of London's gutters: "sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts and blood, drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud..."
1720 — In India, hundreds of Bishnois Hindus of Khejadali go to their deaths trying to protect trees from the Maharaja of Jodhpur, who needed wood to fuel the lime kilns for cement to build his palace. This event has been considered as the origins of the 20th century Chipko movement.
1739 — Benjamin Franklin and neighbors petition Pennsylvania Assembly to stop waste dumping and remove tanneries from Philadelphia's commercial district. Foul smell, lower property values, disease and interference with fire fighting are cited. The industries complain that their rights are being violated, but Franklin argues for "public rights." Franklin and the environmentalists win a symbolic battle but the dumping goes on.
1748 — Jared Eliot, clergyman and physician, writes Essays on Field Husbandry in New England promoting soil conservation.
1762 to 1769 — Philadelphia committee led by Benjamin Franklin attempts to regulate waste disposal and water pollution.
1773 — William Bartram, (1739–1823). American naturalist sets out on a five-year journey through the US Southeast to describe wildlife and wilderness from Florida to the Mississippi. His book, Travels, is published in 1791 and becomes one of the early literary classics of the new United States of America.
1798 – Thomas Robert Malthus publishes An Essay on the Principle of Population, an evolutionary social theory of population dynamics as it had acted steadily throughout all previous history.
19th century
1820 — World human population reached 1 billion.[9]
1828 — Carl Sprengel formulates the Law of the Minimum stating that economic growth is limited not by the total of resources available, but by the scarcest resource.
1845 — First use of the term "carrying capacity" in a report by the US Secretary of State to the Senate.
1849 — Establishment of the U.S. Department of Interior.
1851 — Henry David Thoreau delivers an address to the Concord (Massachusetts) Lyceum declaring that "in Wildness is the preservation of the World." In 1863, this address is published posthumously as the essay "Walking" in Thoreau's Excursions.
1854 — Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden; or, Life in the Woods.
1859 — Publication of second edition of William Elliott's Carolina Sports by Land and Water (first published in 1846), an early example of the hunter-as-conservationist, a phenomenon which became increasingly important for conservationism.
1860 — Henry David Thoreau delivers an address to the Middlesex (Massachusetts) Agricultural Society, entitled "The Succession of Forest Trees," in which he analyzes aspects of what later came to be understood as forest ecology and urges farmers to plant trees in natural patterns of succession; the address is later published in (among other places) Excursions, becoming perhaps his most influential ecological contribution to conservationist thought.
1862 — John Ruskin publishes Unto This Last, which contains a proto-environmental indictment of the effects of unrestricted industrial expansion on both human beings and the natural world. The book influences Mahatma Gandhi, William Morris[10] and Patrick Geddes.[11]
1864 — George Perkins Marsh publishes Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action (revised 1874 as The Earth as Modified by Human Action), the first systematic analysis of humanity's destructive impact on the natural environment and a work which becomes (in Lewis Mumford's words) "the fountain-head of the conservation movement."
1866 — The term ecology is coined in German as Oekologie by Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834–1919) in his Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. Haeckel was an anatomist, zoologist, and field naturalist appointed professor of zoology at the Zoological Institute, Jena, in 1865. Haeckel was philosophically an enthusiastic Darwinian. Ecology is from the Greek oikos, meaning house or dwelling and logos, meaning discourse or the study of.
— The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is founded.
1869 — Samuel Bowles publishes Our New West. Records of Travel between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean, an influential traveller's account of the wilds and peoples of the West, in which he advocates preservation of other scenic areas such as Niagara Falls and the Adirondacks.
1872 — The term acid rain is coined by Robert Angus Smith in the book Air and Rain.
— World's first national park, Yellowstone National Park.
— Arbor Day was founded by J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska City, Nebraska. It occurs every year on the last Friday in April in the US.
1873 — International Meteorological Organization is formed.
1874 — Charles Hallock establishes Forest and Stream magazine sparking a US national debate about ethics and hunting.
— German graduate student Othmar Zeidler first synthesises DDT, later to be used as an insecticide.
1876 — British River Pollution Control Act makes it illegal to dump sewage into a stream.
1879 — U.S. Geological Survey formed. John Wesley Powell, explorer of the Colorado River a decade earlier, will become its head in March 1881.
1883 — Francis Galton coins the still controversial concept of eugenics in his book Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development.
1890 — Yosemite National Park Bill, established the Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks in California.
1891 — Oscar Baumann, Austrian explorer of East Africa, publishes an eye-witness account of the extreme drought period 1883–1902 called Emutai by the Maasai.[12]
— General Revision Act.
1892 — John Muir, (1838–1914), founded the Sierra Club.
1895 — Svante Arrhenius presented to the Stockholm Physical Society the paper “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground.” It is the first scientific work concerning the influence of a rise in carbon dioxide on the atmospheric warming. He used previous studies by Josef Stefan, Arvid Gustaf Högbom, Samuel Langley, Leon Teisserenc de Bort, Knut Angstrom, Alexander Buchan, Luigi De Marchi, Joseph Fourier, C.S.M. Pouillet, and John Tyndall.[13]
1895 — Sewage cleanup in London means the return of some fish species (grilse, whitebait, flounder, eel, smelt) to the River Thames.
20th century
1902 — George Washington Carver writes How to Build Up Worn Out Soils.
1903 — March 14, US President Theodore Roosevelt creates first National Bird Preserve, (the beginning of the Wildlife Refuge system), on Pelican Island, Florida.
— 7300 hectares of land in the Lake District of the Andes foothills in Patagonia are donated by Francisco Moreno as the first park, Nahuel Huapi National Park, in what eventually becomes the National Park System of Argentina.
1905 — The term smog is coined by Henry Antoine Des Voeux in a London meeting to express concern over air pollution.
— The National Audubon Society is founded.
1906 — Antiquities Act, passed by US Congress which authorized the president to set aside national monument sites.
— San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fires destroy much of the city.
1908 — Muir Woods National Monument was established on January 9 and now governed by the National Park Service.
— The National Conservation Commission, appointed in June by President Roosevelt.
— An article by Robert Underwood Johnson in Century magazine, "A High Price to Pay for Water," helps bring the Hetch Hetchy controversy to national attention.
1909 — US President Theodore Roosevelt convenes the North American Conservation Conference, held in Washington, D.C. and attended by representatives of Canada, Newfoundland, Mexico, and the United States.
1910s
1913 — US Congress enacts law which destroyed the Hetch Hetchy Valley.
1916 — US Congress created the National Park Service.
1918 — The Save-the-Redwoods League is founded to the protect the remaining coast redwood trees. Over 60% of the redwoods in California's state redwood parks have been protected by the organization.
— Scientific American reports alcohol-gasoline anti-knock blend is "universally" expected to be the fuel of the future. Seven years later, in Public Health Service hearings, General Motors and Standard Oil spokesmen will claim that there are no alternatives to leaded gasoline as an anti-knock additive.
— Congress approves the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which implements a 1916 Convention (between the U.S. and Britain, acting for Canada) for the Protection of Migratory birds, and establishes responsibility for international migratory bird protection.
– Spanish Flu kills between 50 to 100 million people worldwide
1919 — The National Parks Conservation Association is founded.
1920s
1921 — Thomas Midgley, Jr. discovers lead components to be an efficient antiknock agent in gasoline engines. In spite of the well known toxic effects, lead was in ubiquitous use. First banned from use in Japan 1986.[14]
1922 — The Izaak Walton League is founded.
1924 — The death of English textile worker Nellie Kershaw from asbestosis was the first account of disease attributed to occupational asbestos exposure.
1927 — Great Mississippi Flood.
1928 — Thomas Midgley, Jr. develops chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's) as a non-toxic refrigerant. The first warnings of damage to stratospheric ozone were published by Molina and Rowland 1974. They shared the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their work. Since 1987 world production is reduced under the Montreal Protocol and banned in most countries.
1929 — the Swann Chemical Company develops polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) for transformer coolant use. Research in the 1960s revealed PCBs to be potent carcinogens. Banned from production in the US 1976, probably 1 million tonnes of PCBs were manufactured in total globally.
1930s
1930–1940 — The Dust Bowl, widespread land degradation due to drought in the North American prairie.
1930 — World human population reached 2 billion.[9]
1933 — Legislation on Animal rights adopted, Germany.[15]

1635 The Parliament of Ireland passes "An Act against Plowing by the Tayle, and pulling the Wooll off living Sheep", one of the first known pieces of animal protection legislation.[9]
1641 Regulations against “Tirranny or Crueltie” toward domestic animals are included in the Massachusetts Body of Liberties.[9]
1687 The Japanese ban on eating meat, which had waned with the arrival of Portuguese and Dutch missionaries, is reintroduced by the Tokugawa shogunate. Killing animals is also prohibited.[5]
1780 In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation philosopher Jeremy Bentham argues for better treatment of animals on the basis of their ability to feel pleasure and pain, famously writing, "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"[8]
1822 Led by Richard Martin, British Parliament passes the "Act to Prevent the Cruel and Improper Treatment of Cattle".[33]
1824 Richard Martin, along with Reverend Arthur Broome and abolitionist Member of Parliament William Wilberforce, founds the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (now the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), the world's first animal protection organization.[33]
1830s Early vegan and anti-vivisectionist Lewis Gompertz leaves the SPCA to found the Animals' Friend Society, opposing all uses of animals which are not for their benefit.[34]
1835 Britain passes its first Cruelty to Animal Act after lobbying from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, expanding existing legislation to protect bulls, dogs, bears, and sheep, and prohibit bear-bating and cock-fighting.[citation needed]
1847 The term "vegetarian" is coined and the Vegetarian Society is founded in Britain.[35]
1859 Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is published, demonstrating that humans are the evolutionary descendants of non-human animals.[36]
1866 The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals is established.[15]
1866 onwards Under the Meiji Restoration and renewed contact with the West, the Japanese taboo against meat-eating is actively discouraged by the government. Meat-eating soon becomes the norm.[12]
1875 Frances Power Cobbe founds the National Anti-Vivisection Society in Britain, the world's first anti-vivisection organization.[11]
1876 After lobbying from anti-vivisectionists, Britain passes the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1876, the first piece of national legislation to regulate animal experimentation.[16]
1877 Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, the first English novel to be written from the perspective of a non-human animal, spurs concern for the welfare of horses.[11]
1892 Social reformer Henry Salt publishes Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress, an early exposition of the philosophy of animal rights.[10]
1903-1910 The Brown Dog affair brings anti-vivisection to the forefront of public debate in Britain.[11]
1923 Intensive animal farming begins when Celia Steele raises her first flock of chickens for meat.[13]

1635 The Parliament of Ireland passes An Act against Plowing by the Tayle, and pulling the Wooll off living Sheep, one of the first known pieces of animal protection legislation.[7] Ireland
1751 William Hogarth paints The Four Stages of Cruelty, which depicts children committing cruelty against animals progressing into adults who commit cruelty against other humans.[22] England
1754 Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau argues against the mistreatment of animals on the grounds that they are "sensitive beings" and advocates for vegetarianism.[5] Geneva
1764 Philosopher Voltaire writes Beasts, a short essay denouncing the mechanistic view of animals.[5] France
1780 In An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation philosopher Jeremy Bentham argues for better treatment of animals on the basis of their ability to feel pleasure and pain, famously writing, "The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"[6] England
1785 Philosopher Immanuel Kant argues that animals are not ends-in-themselves, but that in abusing animals we fail in our duties to other people by damaging our humanity.[4] Prussia
1822 Led by Richard Martin, the British Parliament passes the Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act 1822.[8] United Kingdom
1824 Richard Martin, along with Reverend Arthur Broome and abolitionist Member of Parliament William Wilberforce, founds the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (now the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), the world's first animal protection organization.[8] United Kingdom
1830s Early vegan and anti-vivisectionist Lewis Gompertz leaves the SPCA to found the Animals' Friend Society, opposing all uses of animals which are not for their benefit.[23] England
1835 After many similar bills had failed over the previous three decades, the British Parliament passes its first Cruelty to Animal Act, outlawing blood sports.[24] United Kingdom
1837 The first German animal protection society is founded.[9] Stuttgart
1838 The Kingdom of Saxony enacts the first law against animal cruelty in Germany.[9] Saxony
1842 The Swiss Canton of Schaffhausen introduces the first law against animal cruelty in Switzerland.[9] Schaffhausen
1844 The first Swiss animal protection society is founded.[9] Berne
1847 The term "vegetarian" is coined and the British Vegetarian Society is founded.[25] England
1850 France passes law criminalizing the public mistreatment of animals.[10] France
1857 Sweden enacts its Criminal Law, which includes statutes against animal cruelty. Unlike most contemporary European penal statutes, the Swedish law penalizes cruelty towards an animal regardless of its property aspects.[11] Sweden
1859 Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is published, demonstrating that humans are the evolutionary descendants of non-human animals.[26] England
1870s onward European animal protection advocates begin to focus less on animal cruelty as a harm to property and public morals, and more on animal cruelty as a harm to the animal itself. For instance, Germany's Animal Protection Society calls for the expansion of laws so that "the animal itself be protected and not only out of regard for the public".[12]
By 1871 All German states except Lübeck have regulations against animal cruelty.[9] Germany
1875 Frances Power Cobbe founds the British National Anti-Vivisection Society, the world's first anti-vivisection organization.[14] England
1876 After lobbying from anti-vivisectionists, the UK passes the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1876, the first piece of national legislation to regulate animal experimentation.[27] United Kingdom
1877 Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, the first English novel to be written from the perspective of a non-human animal, spurs concern for the welfare of horses.[14] England
1877 Spain passes its first anti-cruelty provision, which prohibits the maltreatment of dogs.[13] Spain
1878-1879 Responding to the moderate positions taken by the German animal protection organizations on animal experimentation, Marie Espérance von Schwartz, Ernst Georg Friedrich Grysanowski, and Ernst von Weber begin to form a dedicated anti-vivisection movement in Germany. Von Weber distributes a highly successful pamphlet, winning the support of Richard Wagner.[9] Germany
1879 Anti-vivisectionists clash with moderate animal protectionists at the German Animal Protection Congress, leading von Weber and von Schwartz to found the International Society for Combat Against Scientific Torture of Animals, which receives financial support from Wagner.[9] Germany
Early 1880s Political debates on the regulation of animal experimentation take place in Germany, resulting in a government inquiry into the need for regulation. A significant majority of German animal protection societies oppose the abolition of vivisection.[9] Germany
1882 The Swedish Nordic Association (now Djurens Rätt, or Animal Rights) is founded to oppose cruelty to animals in science.[28] Sweden
1886 The Germany Society for the Protection of Animals petitions the Reichstag to regulate slaughterhouses, initiating a national debate over slaughter regulation in Germany. By this time there are already nearly 100 public slaughterhouses controlled by local ordinances, including those against unnecessary cruelty.[12] Germany
Late 1880s-early 1890s German anti-vivisectionists fail to achieve national regulations on animal experimentation, and interest in anti-vivisection wanes.[9] Germany
1891 Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish animal protection societies publish an appeal for humane slaughter.[15] Denmark, Norway, and Sweden
1892 Social reformer Henry Salt publishes Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress, an early exposition of the philosophy of animal rights.[29] England
1903-1910 The Brown Dog affair brings anti-vivisection to the forefront of public debate in the UK.[14] England
1928 The Criminal Code of 1928 is the first Spanish law to incriminate abuse of domestic animals in general.[13] Spain