Environmental protection

Environmental protection, or environment protection, refers to the taking of measures to protecting the natural environment, prevent pollution and maintain ecological balance. Action may be taken by individuals, advocacy groups and governments. Objectives include the conservation of the existing natural environment and natural resources and, when possible, repair of damage and reversal of harmful trends.
Due to the pressures of overconsumption, population growth and technology, the biophysical environment is being degraded, sometimes permanently. This has been recognized, and governments have begun placing restraints on activities that cause environmental degradation. Since the 1960s, environmental movements have created more awareness of the multiple environmental problems. There is disagreement on the extent of the environmental impact of human activity, so protection measures are occasionally debated.

Approaches

Voluntary agreements

In industrial countries, voluntary environmental agreements often provide a platform for companies to be recognized for moving beyond the minimum regulatory standards and thus support the development of the best environmental practice. For instance, in India, Environment Improvement Trust has been working for environmental and forest protection since 1998. In developing countries, such as Latin America, these agreements are more commonly used to remedy significant levels of non-compliance with mandatory regulation.

Ecosystems approach

An ecosystems approach to resource management and environmental protection aims to consider the complex interrelationships of an entire ecosystem in decision-making rather than simply responding to specific issues and challenges. Ideally, the decision-making processes under such an approach would be a collaborative approach to planning and decision-making that involves a broad range of stakeholders across all relevant governmental departments, as well as industry representatives, environmental groups, and community. This approach ideally supports a better exchange of information, development of conflict-resolution strategies and improved regional conservation. Religions also play an important role in the conservation of the environment: for example, the Catholic Church's Compendium on its social teaching states that "environmental protection cannot be assured solely on the basis of financial calculations of costs and benefits. The environment is one of those goods that cannot be adequately safeguarded or promoted by market forces."

International agreements

Many of the earth's resources are especially vulnerable because they are influenced by human impacts across different countries. As a result of this, many attempts are made by countries to develop agreements that are signed by multiple governments to prevent damage or manage the impacts of human activity on natural resources. This can include agreements that impact factors such as climate, oceans, rivers and air pollution. These international environmental agreements are sometimes legally binding documents that have legal implications when they are not followed and, at other times, are more agreements in principle or are for use as codes of conduct. These agreements have a long history with some multinational agreements being in place from as early as 1910 in Europe, America and Africa.
Many of the international technical agencies formed after 1945 addressed environmental themes. By the late 1960s, a growing environmental movement called for coordinated and institutionalized international cooperation. The landmark United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm in 1972, establishing the concept of a right to a healthy environment. It was followed by the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme later that year. Some of the most well-known international agreements include the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the Paris Agreement of 2015.
On 8 October 2021, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution recognizing access to a healthy and sustainable environment as a universal right. In the resolution 48/13, the Council called on States around the world to work together, and with other partners, to implement the newly recognized right.
On 28 July 2022, the United Nations General Assembly voted to declare the ability to live in "a clean, healthy and sustainable environment" a universal human right.

Government

Discussion concerning environmental protection often focuses on the role of government, legislation, and law enforcement. However, in its broadest sense, environmental protection may be seen to be the responsibility of all the people and not simply that of government. Decisions that impact the environment will ideally involve a broad range of stakeholders including industry, indigenous groups, environmental group and community representatives. Gradually, environmental decision-making processes are evolving to reflect this broad base of stakeholders and are becoming more collaborative in many countries.

Africa

Tanzania

Many constitutions acknowledge Tanzania as having some of the greatest biodiversity of any African country. Almost 40% of the land has been established into a network of protected areas, including several national parks. The concerns for the natural environment include damage to ecosystems and loss of habitat resulting from population growth, expansion of subsistence agriculture, pollution, timber extraction and significant use of timber as fuel.
Environmental protection in Tanzania began during the German occupation of East Africa —colonial conservation laws for the protection of game and forests were enacted, whereby restrictions were placed upon traditional indigenous activities such as hunting, firewood collecting, and cattle grazing. In 1948, Serengeti has officially established the first national park for wild cats in East Africa. Since 1983, there has been a more broad-reaching effort to manage environmental issues at a national level, through the establishment of the National Environment Management Council and the development of an environmental act.
Division of the biosphere is the main government body that oversees protection. It does this through the formulation of policy, coordinating and monitoring environmental issues, environmental planning and policy-oriented environmental research. The National Environment Management Council is an institution that was initiated when the National Environment Management Act was first introduced in year 1983. This council has the role to advise governments and the international community on a range of environmental issues. The NEMC the following purposes: provide technical advice; coordinate technical activities; develop enforcement guidelines and procedures; assess, monitor and evaluate activities that impact the environment; promote and assist environmental information and communication; and seek advancement of scientific knowledge.
The National Environment Policy of 1997 acts as a framework for environmental decision making in Tanzania. The policy objectives are to achieve the following:

Ensure sustainable and equitable use of resources without degrading the environment or risking health or safety.
Prevent and control degradation of land, water, vegetation and air.
Conserve and enhance natural and man-made heritage, including biological diversity of unique ecosystems.
Improve condition and productivity of degraded areas.
Raise awareness and understanding of the link between environment and development.
Promote individual and community participation.
Promote international cooperation.
Use ecofriendly resources.

Tanzania is a signatory to a significant number of international conventions including the Rio Declaration on Development and Environment 1992 and the Convention on Biological Diversity 1996. The Environmental Management Act, 2004, is the first comprehensive legal and institutional framework to guide environmental-management decisions. The policy tools that are parts of the act include the use of environmental-impact assessments, strategics environmental assessments, and taxation on pollution for specific industries and products. The effectiveness of shifting of this act will only become clear over time as concerns regarding its implementation become apparent based on the fact that, historically, there has been a lack of capacity to enforce environmental laws and a lack of working tools to bring environmental-protection objectives into practice.

Asia

China

Formal environmental protection in China House was first stimulated by the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm, Sweden. Following this, they began establishing environmental protection agencies and putting controls on some of its industrial waste. China was one of the first developing countries to implement a sustainable development strategy. In 1983 the State Council announced that environmental protection would be one of China's basic national policies and in 1984 the National Environmental Protection Agency was established. Following severe flooding of the Yangtze River basin in 1998, NEPA was upgraded to the State Environmental Protection Agency meaning that environmental protection was now being implemented at a ministerial level. In 2008, SEPA became known by its current name of Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People's Republic of China.

Command-and-control	Economic incentives	Voluntary instruments	Public participation
Concentration-based pollution discharge controls	Pollution levy fee	Environmental labeling system	Clean-up campaign
Mass-based controls on total provincial discharge	Non-compliance fines	ISO 14000 system	Environmental awareness campaign
Environmental impact assessments	Discharge permit system	Cleaner production	Air pollution index
Three synchronization program	Sulfur emission fee	NGOs	Water quality disclosure
Deadline transmission trading		Administrative permission hearing	-
Centralized pollution control	Subsidies for energy saving products
Two compliance policy	Regulation on refuse credit to high-polluting firms
Environmental compensation fee

Environmental pollution and ecological degradation has resulted in economic losses for China. In 2005, economic losses were calculated at 7.7% of China's GDP. This grew to 10.3% by 2002 and the economic loss from water pollution began to exceed that caused by air pollution. China has been one of the top performing countries in terms of GDP growth. However, the high economic growth has put immense pressure on its environment and the environmental challenges that China faces are greater than most countries. In 2021 it was noted that China was the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, while also facing additional environmental challenges which included illegal logging, wildlife trafficking, plastic waste, ocean pollution, environmental-related mismanagement, unregulated fishing, and the consequences associated with being the world's largest mercury polluter. All these factors contribute to climate change and habitat loss. In 2022 China was ranked 160th out of 180 countries on the Environmental Performance Index due to poor air quality and high GHG emissions.
Ecological and environmental degradation in China have health related impacts; for example, if current pollution levels continue, Chinese citizens will lose 3.6 billion total life years. Another issue is that non-transmittable diseases among Chinese, which cause at least 80% of 10.3 million annual deaths, are worsened by air pollution.
China has taken initiatives to increase its protection of the environment and combat environmental degradation:

China's investment in renewable energy grew 18% in 2007 to $15.6 billion, accounting for ~10% of the global investment in this area;
In 2008, spending on the environment was 1.49% of GDP, up 3.4 times from 2000;
The discharge of CO and SO2 decreased by 6.61% and 8.95% in 2008 compared with that in 2005;
China's protected nature reserves have increased substantially. In 1978 there were only 34 compared with 2,538 in 2010. The protected nature reserve system now occupies 15.5% of the country; this is higher than the world average.

Rapid growth in GDP has been China's main goal during the past three decades with a dominant development model of inefficient resource use and high pollution to achieve high GDP. For China to develop sustainably, environmental protection should be treated as an integral part of its economic policies.
Quote from Shengxian Zhou, head of MEP : "Good economic policy is good environmental policy and the nature of environmental problem is the economic structure, production form and develop model."
Since around 2010 China appears to be placing a greater emphasis on environmental and ecological protection. For example, former CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao's report at the 2012 CCP National Congress added a section focusing on party policy on ecological issues.
CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping's report at the 19th CCP National Congress in 2017 noted recent progress in ecological and environmental conservation and restoration, the importance of ecologically sustainable development and global ecological security, and the need to provide ecological goods to meet people's growing demands. Most importantly, Xi Jinping has suggested clearly identifiable methods to meet the ecological demands of the country. Some of the solutions he notes are the need for the development and facilitation of: ecological corridors, biodiversity protection networks, redlines for protecting ecosystems, market-based mechanisms for ecological compensation in addition to afforestation, greater crop rotation, recycling, waste reduction, stricter pollution standards, and greener production and technology. The report at the 19th CCP National Congress isn't simply the personal thoughts from Xi Jinping, it's a product of a long process of compromise and negotiation among competing party officials and leaders.
Additionally, the Third Plenum of the CCP in 2013 included a manifesto that placed extreme emphasis on reforming management of the environment, promising to create greater transparency of those polluting, and placing environmental criteria above GDP growth for local official evaluations.
Reform has not come cheap for China. In 2016, it was noted that in response to pollution and oversupply, China laid off around six million workers in state-owned enterprises and spent $23 billion to cover layoffs specifically for coal and steel companies between 2016 and 2019. While expensive, other benefits of environmental protection have been noticed beyond impacting citizens' health. For example, in the long run, environmental protection has been found to generally improve job quality of migrant workers by reducing their work intensity, while increasing social security and job quality.
Different local governments in China implement different approaches to solving the issue of ecological protection, sometimes with negative consequences for the citizens. For example, a prefecture in the Shanxi province imposed bans, and potential legal detentions or steep fines for violations, on coal-burning by villagers. Although the government provided free gas-heaters often the villagers were unable to afford to run them. In Wuhan, automated surveillance technology and video is used to catch illegal fishing, and in some cities not recycling results in negative social credit points. It is unclear in some of these instances if citizens have any potential routes for recourse.
News in 2023 has found that the Chinese Communist Party's recent war on pollution has already brought substantial and measurable impacts, including China's particulate pollution levels dropping 42% from 2013 levels and increasing the average lifespan expectancy of citizens by an estimated 2.2 years.