Proclamation 4435—Earth Week, 1976

In this Bicentennial Year, we should give special recognition to the legacy of nature as well as to that of history. America's mountains, prunes, woodlands, and waterways are natural wonders of breathtaking beauty, and they provide resources for trade and transportation, human welfare and recreation. These resources are not ours to abuse. We hold them in trust for posterity.

In recent years, we have learned that our past progress was often made without sufficient regard for the long-term consequences to our natural environment. To meet this environmental challenge, we have enacted more than a dozen significant national environmental laws. Their results are encouraging; we are beginning to bring our most chronic sources of water pollution under control, and we are improving the quality of the air and the richness of our land.

Much remains to be done, but steady long-range progress can only be sustained by continuous effort. Active interest by all Americans is the only force that can translate environmental policy into environmental progress.

Our environment is the responsibility not only of government and business, but it must also be a matter of daily concern to every American.

Now, Therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week beginning Thursday, April 22, 1976, to Wednesday, April 28, 1976, as Earth Week.

I call upon government officials at all levels to observe this week with appropriate activities, and I call upon civic organizations and businesses to make at least one new effort during this week for a cleaner, safer, healthier environment.

And I urge each American to devote one day during this week to a significant activity which improves our environment.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of April, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundredth.

GERALD R. FORD