Rod Nash wrote the Declaration of Environmental Rights read at Santa Barbara’s 1970 Environmental Rights Day.
The declaration was presented on January 28, 1970, the first anniversary of the Santa Barbara oil blowout. Nash drafted it during a boat trip across the Santa Barbara Channel, deliberately echoing Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence while applying its language to humanity’s responsibilities toward the natural world.
Environmental Rights Day was organized by Santa Barbara activists led by Marc McGinnes. The event brought together local organizers and prominent national environmental figures, including Congressman Pete McCloskey, Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes, Paul Ehrlich, David Brower, and Senator Alan Cranston. Several endorsed the declaration or spoke at the accompanying conference.
The event is sometimes confused with the first Earth Day, held on April 22, 1970. Environmental Rights Day came nearly three months earlier and was a distinct Santa Barbara commemoration. Nash’s declaration reflected the growing belief that environmental protection should be treated as a civic and political right, not merely as a matter of conservation.