2004 in the environment

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Last updated March 03, 2019

This is a list of notable events relating to the environment in 2004. They relate to environmental law, conservation, environmentalism and environmental issues.

2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2004th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 4th year of the 3rd millennium, the 4th year of the 21st century, and the 5th year of the 2000s decade.

Environmental law, also known as environmental and natural resources law, is a collective term describing the network of treaties, statutes, regulations, common and customary laws addressing the effects of human activity on the natural environment. The core environmental law regimes address environmental pollution. A related but distinct set of regulatory regimes, now strongly influenced by environmental legal principles, focus on the management of specific natural resources, such as forests, minerals, or fisheries. Other areas, such as environmental impact assessment, may not fit neatly into either category, but are nonetheless important components of environmental law.

Events

The results of the Global Amphibian Assessment were published, the first worldwide assessment of amphibian populations. It found that 32% of species were globally threatened, at least 43% were experiencing some form of population decrease, and that between 9 and 122 species have become extinct since 1980. This decline in amphibian populations may be due in part to the effects of human activity.

The decline in amphibian populations is an ongoing mass extinction of amphibian species worldwide. Since the 1980s, decreases in amphibian populations, including population crashes and mass localized extinctions, have been observed in locations all over the world. These declines are known as one of the most critical threats to global biodiversity, and several causes are believed to be involved, including disease, habitat destruction and modification, exploitation, pollution, pesticide use, introduced species, and ultraviolet-B radiation (UV-B). However, many of the causes of amphibian declines are still poorly understood, and the topic is currently a subject of much ongoing research. Calculations based on extinction rates suggest that the current extinction rate of amphibians could be 211 times greater than the background extinction rate and the estimate goes up to 25,000–45,000 times if endangered species are also included in the computation.

January

The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 come into force. It is a United Kingdom Statutory Instrument that provides a statutory right of access to environmental information held by UK public authorities.

The Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) is a UK Statutory Instrument that provides a statutory right of access to environmental information held by UK public authorities. The regulations came into force on 1 January 2005. The regulations were made by the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs under the authority provided by the European Communities Act 1972, entering into force on 1 January 2005, along with the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The Regulations covers UK Central Government and public authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scottish public authorities are covered by the Environmental Information Regulations (Scotland) 2004 (EISR).

February

The Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels comes into force.

The Agreement on the Conservation of Albatrosses and Petrels (ACAP) is a legally binding international treaty signed in 2001 and entered into force on 1 February 2004 when South Africa ratified as the fifth Party to the agreement.

May

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants comes into force. It is an international environmental treaty that aims to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
The judgement in the Monsanto Canada Inc. v. Schmeiser case is made. It is a leading Supreme Court of Canada case on patent rights for biotechnology. The court heard the question of whether growing genetically modified plants constitutes "use" of the patented invention of genetically modified plant cells. By a narrow 5–4 majority, the court ruled that it does. The case drew worldwide attention.
Kaikoura Island in the Hauraki Gulf in New Zealand was purchased from private owners and established as an open sanctuary.

Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is an international environmental treaty, signed in 2001 and effective from May 2004, that aims to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

Kaikoura Island lies in an irregularly-shaped bay on the western side of Great Barrier Island in the Hauraki Gulf in New Zealand, 90 km (56 mi) north east of Auckland. Kaikoura Island is the seventh largest island in the Hauraki Gulf. It is 80 metres from Great Barrier Island at its closest point and forms the natural harbours of Port FitzRoy and Port Abercrombie. Its biota includes the endangered brown teal duck, the North Island kaka and many native trees and shrubs.

August

The Berlin Rules on Water Resources document is adopted by the International Law Association to summarize international law customarily applied in modern times to freshwater resources, whether within a nation or crossing international boundaries.

The Berlin Rules on Water Resources is a document adopted by the International Law Association (ILA) to summarize international law customarily applied in modern times to freshwater resources, whether within a nation or crossing international boundaries. Adopted on August 21, 2004, in Berlin, the document supersedes the ILA's earlier "The Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers", which was limited in its scope to international drainage basins and aquifers connected to them.

November

A male Po'o-uli dies of avian malaria at the Maui Bird Conservation Center in Olinda before it can breed, making the species in all probability extinct.

December

State of Fear , a techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton based on eco-terrorism, is published receiving widespread criticism from scientists, journalists and environmental groups.

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A pollutant is a substance or energy introduced into the environment that has undesired effects, or adversely affects the usefulness of a resource. A pollutant may cause long- or short-term damage by changing the growth rate of plant or animal species, or by interfering with human amenities, comfort, health, or property values. Some pollutants are biodegradable and therefore will not persist in the environment in the long term. However, the degradation products of some pollutants are themselves polluting such as the products DDE and DDD produced from degradation of DDT.

This is an index of conservation topics. It is an alphabetical index of articles relating to conservation biology and conservation of the natural environment.

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are organic compounds that are resistant to environmental degradation through chemical, biological, and photolytic processes. Because of their persistence, POPs bioaccumulate with potential adverse impacts on human health and the environment. The effect of POPs on human and environmental health was discussed, with intention to eliminate or severely restrict their production, by the international community at the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001.

Wildlife conservation is the practice of protecting wild plant and animal species and their habitat. Wildlife plays an important role in balancing the ecosystem and provides stability to different natural processes of nature like rainfall(transpiration from plant),changing of temperature(heat evolution by animals), fertility of soil. The goal of wildlife conservation is to ensure that nature will be around for future generations to enjoy and also to recognize the importance of wildlife and wilderness for humans and other species alike. Many nations have government agencies and NGO's dedicated to wildlife conservation, which help to implement policies designed to protect wildlife. Numerous independent non-profit organizations also promote various wildlife conservation causes.

A bioindicator is any species or group of species whose function, population, or status can reveal the qualitative status of the environment. For example, copepods and other small water crustaceans that are present in many water bodies can be monitored for changes that may indicate a problem within their ecosystem. Bioindicators can tell us about the cumulative effects of different pollutants in the ecosystem and about how long a problem may have been present, which physical and chemical testing cannot.

Environmental assessment (EA) is the assessment of the environmental consequences of a plan, policy, program, or actual projects prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action. In this context, the term "environmental impact assessment" (EIA) is usually used when applied to actual projects by individuals or companies and the term "strategic environmental assessment" (SEA) applies to policies, plans and programmes most often proposed by organs of state. Environmental assessments may be governed by rules of administrative procedure regarding public participation and documentation of decision making, and may be subject to judicial review.

Environmental Protection Department is a department of Hong Kong Government concerning the issues of environmental protection in Hong Kong.

The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, includes all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth.

The environmental impact of agriculture is the effect that different farming practices have on the ecosystems around them, and how those effects can be traced back to those practices. The environmental impact of agriculture varies based on the wide variety of agricultural practices employed around the world. Ultimately, the environmental impact depends on the production practices of the system used by farmers. The connection between emissions into the environment and the farming system is indirect, as it also depends on other climate variables such as rainfall and temperature.

The Aarhus Protocol on Persistent Organic Pollutants, a 1998 protocol on persistent organic pollutants (POPs), is an addition to the 1979 Geneva Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP). The Protocol seeks "to control, reduce or eliminate discharge, emissions and losses of persistent organic pollutants" in Europe, some former Soviet Union countries, and the United States, in order to reduce their transboundary fluxes so as to protect human health and the environment from adverse effects.

Waste management laws govern the transport, treatment, storage, and disposal of all manner of waste, including municipal solid waste, hazardous waste, and nuclear waste, among many other types. Waste laws are generally designed to minimize or eliminate the uncontrolled dispersal of waste materials into the environment in a manner that may cause ecological or biological harm, and include laws designed to reduce the generation of waste and promote or mandate waste recycling. Regulatory efforts include identifying and categorizing waste types and mandating transport, treatment, storage, and disposal practices.

The Global Monitoring Plan (GMP) under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is a programme that enables collection of comparable monitoring data from all regions of the world to assess the effectiveness of the Stockholm Convention in minimizing human and environmental exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs). To know whether the levels of POPs are increasing or decreasing over time, information on environmental and human exposure levels of these chemicals should enable detection of trends. GMP looks at background levels of POPs at locations not influenced by local sources, such as ‘hot spots’. For human sampling, the focus is on the general population rather than on individuals who may have suffered high exposure to POPs.

This is a list of notable events relating to the environment in 2003. They relate to environmental law, conservation, environmentalism and environmental issues.

This is a list of notable events relating to the environment in 1983. They relate to environmental law, conservation, environmentalism and environmental issues.

This is a list of notable events relating to the environment in 1979. They relate to environmental law, conservation, environmentalism and environmental issues.

2004 in the environment

Events

See also

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