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1991 In The Environment
This is a list of notable events relating to the environment in 1991. They relate to environmental law, conservation, environmentalism and environmental issues. Events *The New Zealand Forest Accord between forestry associations and environmental groups is signed. *The Rotvoll controversy arose in Norway concerning the construction of a research and development facility for Statoil. It was a political controversy with concerns over secrecy and the lack of legally required environmental impact studies. January *The Gulf War oil spill began. It is one of the largest oil spills in history and resulted from the Gulf War in 1991 causing considerable damage to wildlife in the Persian Gulf, especially in areas surrounding Kuwait and Iraq. *The Kuwaiti oil fires began and were caused by Iraqi military forces setting fire to more than 600 oil wells as part of a scorched earth policy while retreating from Kuwait. February *The Protocol to the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transbou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environment (biophysical)
The natural environment or natural world encompasses all biotic and abiotic things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial. The term is most often applied to Earth or some parts of Earth. This environment encompasses the interaction of all living species, climate, weather and natural resources that affect human survival and economic activity. The concept of the ''natural environment'' can be distinguished as components: * Complete ecological units that function as natural systems without massive civilized human intervention, including all vegetation, microorganisms, soil, rocks, plateaus, mountains, the atmosphere and natural phenomena that occur within their boundaries and their nature. * Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge and magnetism, not originating from civilized human actions. In contrast to the natural environment is the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmental Law
Environmental laws are laws that protect the environment. The term "environmental law" encompasses treaties, statutes, regulations, conventions, and policies designed to protect the natural environment and manage the impact of human activities on ecosystems and natural resources, such as forests, minerals, or fisheries. It addresses issues such as pollution control, resource conservation, biodiversity protection, climate change mitigation, and sustainable development. As part of both national and international legal frameworks, environmental law seeks to balance environmental preservation with economic and social needs, often through regulatory mechanisms, enforcement measures, and incentives for compliance. The field emerged prominently in the mid-20th century as industrialization and environmental degradation spurred global awareness, culminating in landmark agreements like the 1972 Stockholm Conference and the 1992 Rio Declaration. Key principles include the precaut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conservation (ethic)
Nature conservation is the ethic/moral philosophy and conservation movement focused on protecting species from extinction, maintaining and restoring habitats, enhancing ecosystem services, and protecting biological diversity. A range of values underlie conservation, which can be guided by biocentrism, anthropocentrism, ecocentrism, and sentientism, environmental ideologies that inform ecocultural practices and identities. There has recently been a movement towards evidence-based conservation which calls for greater use of scientific evidence to improve the effectiveness of conservation efforts. As of 2018 15% of land and 7.3% of the oceans were protected. Many environmentalists set a target of protecting 30% of land and marine territory by 2030. In 2021, 16.64% of land and 7.9% of the oceans were protected. The 2022 IPCC report on climate impacts and adaptation, underlines the need to conserve 30% to 50% of the Earth's land, freshwater and ocean areas – echoing the 30% ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecologism combines the ideology of social ecology and environmentalism. ''Ecologism'' is more commonly used in continental European languages, while ''environmentalism'' is more commonly used in English but the words have slightly different connotations. Environmentalism advocates the preservation, restoration and improvement of the natural environment and critical earth system elements or processes such as the climate, and may be referred to as a movement to control pollution or protect plant and animal diversity. For this reason, concepts such as a land ethics, environmental ethics, biodiversity, ecology, and the biophilia hypothesis figure predominantly. The environmentalist movement encompasses various approaches to addressing envi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmental Issue
Environmental issues are disruptions in the usual function of ecosystems. Further, these issues can be caused by humans (human impact on the environment) or they can be natural. These issues are considered serious when the ecosystem cannot recover in the present situation, and catastrophic if the ecosystem is projected to certainly collapse. Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment on the individual, organizational or governmental levels, for the benefit of both the environment and humans. Environmentalism is a social movement, social and environmental movement that addresses environmental issues through advocacy, legislation education, and activism. Environment destruction caused by humans is a global, ongoing problem. Water pollution also cause problems to marine life. Some scholars believe that the projected peak global population of roughly 9-10 billion people could live sustainably within the earth's ecosystems if humans worked to live ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Zealand Forest Accord
The New Zealand Forest Accord is an accord among forestry associations and environmental groups that was signed in 1991. Signatories * New Zealand Forest Owners' Association * New Zealand Timber Industry Federation * New Zealand Farm Forestry Association * New Zealand Wood Panels Manufacturing Association * Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society of New Zealand * Environment and Conservation Organisations of Aotearoa New Zealand * Federated Mountain Clubs * Friends of the Earth * Beech Action Committee * Pacific Institute of Resource Management * World Wildlife Fund (New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...) * Japan Tropical Forest Action Network * Tropical Forest Action Group * Maruia Society See also * Forestry in New Zealand References {{reflist E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rotvoll Controversy
The Rotvoll controversy refers to a political controversy in Norway in 1991 concerning the construction of a research and development (R&D) facility for Statoil at Rotvoll outside Trondheim. Key events The background for the controversy was that Statoil wanted to establish a new research and development centre in Trondheim, and had acquired land at the recreational area Rotvoll to the east of Trondheim. This area was an agriculture boundary right outside Trondheim, and was connected to Lade, Trondheim, Leangenbukta (English: Leangen Bay), an important bird life area. There were some old farms at Rotvoll as well, considered to be worth protecting. There was a lot of secrecy around the formal approval of the construction at Rotvoll, and the approval process did not, like the law required, undertake a study of the consequences for the environment. Both the Norwegian Directorate for Nature Management, the List of County Governors of Sør-Trøndelag, County Governor and city antiquarian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gulf War Oil Spill
The "Persian Gulf oil spill", was one of the largest oil spills in history, resulting from the Persian Gulf War in 1991. In January 1991, Iraqi forces allegedly began dumping oil into the Persian Gulf to stop a U.S. coalition-led water landing on their shores. Despite quite high initial estimates, the amount of oil spilled was likely about 4,000,000 US barrels (480,000 m3). Within the following months of the spill, most clean-up was targeted at recovering oil, and very little clean-up was done on Saudi Arabia’s highly affected beaches. An initial study in 1993 found that the spill will not have long-term environmental consequences, but many studies since 1991 have concluded the opposite, claiming that the spill is responsible for environmental damage to coastline sediments and marine species and ecosystems. Considered an act of environmental terrorism, the spill was a heated political move that had implications for the larger Persian Gulf War and temporarily damaged Kuwait and S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kuwaiti Oil Fires
The Kuwaiti oil fires were caused by the Iraqi military setting fire to a reported 605 to 732 oil wells along with an unspecified number of oil filled low-lying areas, such as oil lakes and fire trenches while retreating from Kuwait in 1991 due to the advances of US-led coalition forces in the Gulf War. The fires were started in January and February 1991, and the first oil well fires were extinguished in early April 1991, with the last well capped on November 6, 1991. Motives The dispute between Iraq and Kuwait over alleged slant-drilling in the Rumaila oil field was one of the reasons for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.Thomas C. HayesConfrontation in the Gulf; The Oilfield Lying Below the Iraq-Kuwait Dispute, ''The New York Times'', September 3, 1990 In addition, Kuwait had been producing oil above treaty limits established by OPEC. By the eve of the Iraqi invasion, Kuwait had set production quotas to almost , which coincided with a sharp worldwide drop in the price of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nitrogen Oxide Protocol
Protocol to the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution Concerning the Control of Emissions of Nitrogen Oxides or Their Transboundary Fluxes, opened for signature on 31 October 1988 and entered into force on 14 February 1991, was to provide for the control or reduction of nitrogen oxides and their transboundary fluxes. It was concluded in Sofia, Bulgaria. Parties (as of February 2020): (36) Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States. See also * Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution * Environmental agreements Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Air Quality Agreement
An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosphere is the outer region of a star, which includes the layers above the opaque photosphere; stars of low temperature might have outer atmospheres containing compound molecules. The atmosphere of Earth is composed of nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), argon (0.9%), carbon dioxide (0.04%) and trace gases. Most organisms use oxygen for respiration; lightning and bacteria perform nitrogen fixation which produces ammonia that is used to make nucleotides and amino acids; plants, algae, and cyanobacteria use carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. The layered composition of the atmosphere minimises the harmful effects of sunlight, ultraviolet radiation, solar wind, and cosmic rays and thus protects the organisms from genetic damage. The current composition of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
