WHAT IS ENVIRONMENTAL LAW?

Humanity has been aware of its environment far longer than there have been laws to protect
environments. Environmental law, or sometimes known as environmental and natural
resources law, is a term used to explain regulations, statutes, local, national and international
legislation, and treaties designed to protect the environment from damage and to explain the
legal consequences of such damage towards governments or private entities or individuals.
However, the term “environmental law” does not just cover government legislation. It can
also describe a desire by businesses and other organizations, and their regulators to work
towards improving ethical principles by setting regulation and industry standards for
operating licenses. These are not “laws” per se but act as such within a regulatory framework.
It can also apply a method of land management on a kind of understanding of acting
responsibly and ethically.

However, the term “environmental law” does not just cover government legislation. It can
also describe a desire by businesses and other organizations, and their regulators to work
towards improving ethical principles by setting regulation and industry standards for
operating licenses. These are not “laws” per se but act as such within a regulatory framework.
It can also apply a method of land management on a kind of understanding of acting
responsibly and ethically.

Similarly, impact assessment is not always legally required, but the permission to develop,
construct, modify or engineer can often be refused if one is not carried out. These are
voluntary regulations rather than law conducted for the good of the environment and the local
population. For various reasons, environmental law has always been a flashpoint of
controversy. Debates often center on cost, the necessity of such regulations, and the age-old
friction between government regulation and encouraging the market to self-regulate and do
the right thing for the good of everyone. For example, the ongoing debate over the impact of
certain pesticides in agriculture, greenhouse gas emissions are often a battle between the
science and industry's attempts to muddy the science and government lobbying to roll back
legislation. The other side of the debate is that current industry regulations and legislation are
insufficient. Both sides regularly hold conferences to discuss aspects of environmental law
and how they should go about getting them changed in their favor.

Whichever way we look at it, environmental law affects all of us - individual health, business
activity, geographical sustainability, and the importance of preserving those for the future
generations and economy.

Environmental law describes a network of regulations and customary laws that address the
effects of human activity on the natural environment. These laws are also referred to as
environmental and natural resource law and center on the idea of environmental pollution.

In addition to this issue, environmental law works to manage specific natural resources and
environmental impact assessment.
There are a few key areas that environmental law works to regulate in order to lessen the
impact on the environment. Some of these areas include:

 Air Quality

 Water Quality

 Waste Management

 Contaminant Cleanup

 Chemical Safety

 Resource Sustainability

1.1 IMPOTANCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL LAW.

As you can see from the list above, environmental laws play a huge part in protecting

humans, animals, resources, and habitats. Without these laws, there would be no regulations

concerning pollution, contamination, hunting, or even response to disasters.

Environmental law works to protect land, air, water, and soil. Negligence of these laws

results in various punishments like fines, community service, and in some extreme cases, jail

time. Without these environmental laws, the government would not be able to punish those

who treat the environment poorly

1. For Health of Current Generations

Healthcare is an expensive business no matter where you are in the world. Some of the

world's oldest environmental protections were designed with human health in mind. The

Clean Air Act is an excellent example of this following the publication of Rachel Carson's

book Silent Spring. Although focused on ecology, areas of the book touched on human health

and the damage that industrial activity of the past 100-150 years was doing to our lives. Even

today, people who live in the most heavily industrialized areas tend to suffer more health

issues and more longer-term health problems too. It's vital that we clean up the air, water and

other aspects of the environment to improve their health.

 2. For Health of Future Generations

It isn't just the health of current generations about which we need to be concerned. Our

children and their children and so on will experience the growing cost of healthcare (9),

sometimes due to environmental reasons, leading to greater instances of some conditions. All

over the world, even in countries where there is socialized healthcare, instances of health

problems and the costs of implementing a health system continue to increase. It is the mission

of some environmental health laws to preserve future generations against further costs, the

mitigate problems now, for ensuring a healthier populace and environment. We are also

seeing new emergent diseases in areas that never experienced them before and greater

instances of existing diseases where they are prevalent but controlled. Some of the reasons

are believed to be ecological in nature with warming air and damper environments

encouraging virus replication or the species that carry them such as mosquitoes.

3. Maintaining Resources and Lifestyle

In many ways, environmental laws are a form of insurance policy for the future for such

things as food and water security, resource protection, energy, and ecological balance (10).

Fossil fuels are a depleting resource and though many metals are finite, they could potentially

last centuries. There will come a time when certain resources are gone and that's why it's

important to ensure we use as few of them as possible and take out insurance

policies. Fishing rights are one of these issues. Overfishing in many parts of the world not

just damages our food supply and the industry, but has the potential to upset the ecological

balance of the oceans. That's why many countries have agreed to fish quotas.