A presentation on the history of conservation in the United States commemorates “Earth Day,” 1 p.m. April 20, Lehigh County Historical Society’s Lehigh Valley Heritage Museum, 432 W. Walnut St., Allentown.

“In our hectic, urbanized lives, we forget the fragility and beauty of nature and the ways in which our lives depend on the health of the planet,” said Joseph Garrera, Executive Director of the Museum. Garrera. “Earth Day offers an opportunity to stop, reflect, and take action.”

Earth Day has been held April 22 annually since 1970. The first Earth Day was so successful that before the end of that year the United States created the Environmental Protection Agency, and Congress passed the Clean Air Act of 1970.

The U.S. conservation movement goes back much further. In the 1800s, landscape painters and authors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau shared their passion for nature.

By 1900, westward expansion, lumbering and urbanization endangered many once-numerous species.

Deer were so rare in the Lehigh Valley that in the early 1900s industrialist, conservationist and philanthropist Harry C. Trexler of Allentown brought deer, elk and bison to his game preserve in hopes of propagating the three species.

At the federal level, President Theodore Roosevelt promoted the conservation movement, creating the U.S. Forest Service in 1905 and working to enlarge the National Park System.

Information: lehighvalleyheritagemuseum.org; 610-435-1074