Environmental protection involves governments and businesses instituting practices that limit damage to the natural environment. This can include reducing carbon emissions, recycling waste, or limiting the use of harmful chemicals in production processes. It can also involve setting aside land for nature preservation or funding tree planting initiatives.
Effective environmental protection policies prevent long-term harm and ensure sustainable development while improving quality of life for people. This is accomplished by focusing on issues like pollution prevention, resource depletion, climate change, water and air pollution, loss of biodiversity, and the conservation of critical natural habitats.
The term is also used to refer to the legal recognition of a safe operating space for humanity within the Earth System, as defined by the planetary boundaries framework. The implementation of such a framework could potentially require the development of new international laws and regulations, as well as an evolution of existing ones.
In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets emission, quality, discharge, and disposal standards for air and water. The EPA also works to identify and remedy environmental hazards including the clean up of contaminated sites.
Almost all nations have some form of environmental protection, with most establishing national-level departments and agencies responsible for overseeing the enforcement of environmental legislation and programs at a local level. In the United States, for example, state-level departments of environmental protection handle local issues and may issue laws more stringent than those set by the EPA.