Encyklopedia Administracji Publicznej MW Pivot Skin

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION – all rules, procedures and actions taken by the state bodies and private persons that aim at broadly understood protection of natural resources that includes generally four groups of goals: 1. maintaining the current state of the environment and, where possible, reversing its degradation; 2. prevention of damage to natural resources (fauna, flora and landscape); 3. actions aimed at repairing already made damages and devastations; 4. undertakings aimed at preventing, reducing or eliminating the risk of such damages. Within the environmental protection all actions are promoted (on global, regional, state and local levels) that aim at more effective, economical use of the natural resources that take into account the principle of sustainable development that is the socio-economic development which does not disturb the balance of nature and favours the survival of its resources. In 1992 in Rio de Janeiro the so-called Earth Summit had taken place – The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development – during which the principles of sustainable development, among others, were formed. The most important of them are: everyone has the right to healthy and creative life in harmony with nature; the right to development must be realised in a way that fairly links the developmental and environmental needs of current and future generations; achieving sustainable development requires that environmental protection be an integral part of this process, and states should contribute to sustainable development by streamlining technological processes, as well as the transfer of new, environmentally sound technologies [ M. Kaczorowska ].