Earthwatch: 35 years of making a difference
1971-Educational Expeditions International launches first expedition to Amaro Mountains of Ethiopia, directed by geologist Dr. Paul Mohr of the Smithsonian Institution.
1972-French volcanologist Dr. Haroun Tazieff's expedition to Mount Nyiragongo in Zaire becomes a National Geographic special seen by 30 million viewers on CBS-TV.
1973-Volunteers observe solar eclipse in the Sahara Desert of Mauritania, led by Dr. Donald Menzel of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
1973-A team of volunteers is recruited in eight days to document eruption of Helgefel Volcano in Iceland, using the name Earthwatch for the first time.
1974-First volunteer team helps William Waldren excavate evidence of prehistoric Mediterranean cultures on Mallorca, now Earthwatch's longest-supported project.
1976-Dr. Stephen Leatherman launches Cape Cod study instrumental in establishing the Cape Cod National Seashore, and in passing federal barrier island protection laws.
1977-Earthwatch receives grant from National Endowment for the Humanities to encourage funding of research in folklore, architecture, and ethnomusicology.
1978-Teams join Wilson Turner in California's Black Canyon to document 10,000 petroglyphs, the earliest remnants of the nation's artistic heritage, before they disappeared.
1979-Earthwatch launches Field Representative program and first annual conference.
1980-Study of Mississippi's Gulf Islands results in Wall Street Journal editorial on coastal wetlands policy, a warning 25 years before Hurricane Katrina.
1982-Architect Paul Sun leads first of three expeditions to China, the first project after the opening of China.
1982-Earthwatch teams explore inside the Red Zone at Mt.St. Helens in Washington state to monitor the natural reseeding of the area devastated by the volcanic eruption.
1982-Guatemala expands Tikal National Park to include Uaxactun, prompted by Dr. Edwin Shook's 1974 restoration work at this important Maya site.
1985-In Honduras, Dr. William Fash uses Earthwatch volunteers to assemble the giant frieze of Maya glyphs at Copan.
1987-In the middle of the Cold War, Earthwatch, with Soros and Ford Foundation support, launches collaborative research program with the Russian Academy of Sciences.
1987-Earthwatch receives Department of Interior's Conservation Service Award for the work of hundreds of volunteers to protect leatherback sea turtles in the Virgin Islands.
1988-Earthwatch sponsors first ever joint US-USSR research expedition to Lake Baikal in Siberia, looking at water quality and pollutants.
1990-Dr. George Archibald launches expeditions to restore the saurus crane to its native wetlands of Vietnam.
1993-Earthwatch teams with Dr. Christopher Raxworthy add 42 percent more reptiles and 77 percent more amphibians to the species list for Madagascar's Lokobe Reserve.
1995-In Zimbabwe, Dr. Joseph Dudley's teams make the first observations of one of nature's greatest vegetarians, hippos, eating meat, suggesting that drought gave rise to omnivory.
1995-Costa Rica designates Parque Marino Las Baulas on the Pacific coast, protecting critical nesting habitat for endangered leatherback turtles, with support from Earthwatch data.
1996-Earthwatch works with the inventors of the Internet, Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, to provide the first live webcast from the mountains of Mexico to the Harvard Science Center and a Wayland, MA classroom.
1998-Zolt Debreczy completes fieldwork for world atlas of conifers, with 200,000 specimens including Earthwatch data from China, Chile, Mexico, Taiwan, and Japan.
2000-A grant from Ford Motor Company Fund launches global network of Earthwatch Conservation Research Initiatives, starting in Brazil's Pantanal.
2000-Earthwatch-supported scientists Ken Balcomb and Diane Claridge find mass stranding of 17 cetaceans in the Bahamas is caused by physical trauma from sonar tests.
2000-In Tanzania, Spanish archaeologists led by Dr. Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo find the oldest evidence of woodworking in human evolution.
2001-Argentina's Ischigualasto Valley is named a UNESCO World Heritage Site thanks to the work of Dr. Oscar Alcober on fossil beds containing the world's earliest dinosaurs.
2001- In Romania, Dr. Mihail Zahariade and Earthwatch teams discover the tomb of two celebrated Christian martyrs, dispelling centuries of debate over the martyrs' whereabouts.
2002-Earthwatch Institute receives $16 million from HSBC, one of the largest banking organizations in the world, to involve some 2,000 employees in Earthwatch expeditions
2002-Dr. Peter Quinby succeeds in gaining protection for 3,000 hectares of old growth forest in the Temagami wilderness of Ontario, Canada, based on Earthwatch-supported research.
2002-A grant from the National Geographic Society Education Foundation promotes geographic literacy by involving teachers in Earthwatch-supported field research.
2004-Ten years of botanical surveys in the Cameroon rainforest with Dr. Martin Cheek leads to the discovery of 50 new plant species and varieties.
2004-Three high school students set out on an Earthwatch odyssey around the globe, portrayed in the HD documentary A Year on Earth to be broadcast in 2006. See the Earthbound3 website chronicling their journey.
2005-Earthwatch adopts United Nations Millennium Goals as criteria for accepting scientific research proposals.
2006-Scientists from Saving the Leatherback Turtle find that 20 years of beach conservation on St. Croix led to a significant increase in the leatherback population.
For press information, images and interviews contact:
Zoe Gamble, Press Officer + 44 (0) 1865 318806/ zgamble@earthwatch.org.uk
Editors Notes