Sustainable Tourism Law

82 SUSTAINABLE TOURISM LAW /195 TFEU) states: “ Union policy on the environment shall contribute to pursuit of the following objectives: – preserving, protecting and improving the quality of the environment, – protecting human health, – prudent and rational utilization of natural resources, – promoting measures at international level to deal with regional or worldwide environmental problems, and in particular combating climate change ”. In the Treaty of Amsterdam (1997) art. B states that “ the Union shall set itself the following objectives: – to promote economic and social progress and a high level of employment and to achieve balanced and sustainable development ”. In November 2013 the EU approved the Seventh Environment Action Programme, with the title “Living well, within the limits of our planet”. The Programme aims to cover actions up to 2020. InNovember 2016, the European Commission outlined its strategic approach towards the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, including the Sustainable Development Goals. The role of the Law. Environmental Laws In the impervious road to Sustainable Development, a key role is constituted by the preservation and protection of the environment. Here the law can play a fundamental role. Of course, the Law may give a fundamental contribution to reduce pollution and to protect the environment. And thus Environmental Law started to develop 102 . Today, it is conceivable to have a new right: the right to a healthy environment 103 . Historically, one of the first environmental protection laws is dated back to 1769, when it was decreed that Mauritius’ forests should be safeguarded. Through the cultural development, it spread the awareness that such resources were not “free of charge” 104 . But in a modern sense, Environmental Laws are dated after World War II, in the late 1960s 105 . 102 J. B. RUHL, Sustainable Development: A Five Dimensional Algorithm for Environmental Law, in Stanford Environmental Law Journal , Vol. 18, 1999, page 31. 103 See, for example Rajendra RAMLOGAN, Sustainable Development. Towards a Judicial Interpretation, (available also as E-Book), Brill Ed., Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2010. Chapter Four is dedicated tho the right to a healthy Environment, page 124. 104 The French environmental protection in Mauritius is the evidence of an important and innovative revolution in thinking: the acknowledgment of a link between deforestation and local climatic changes: R. H. GROVE, (1996). Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens, and the Origins of Environmentalism 1600- -1860 . Cambridge University Press, 1996, page 168-263. 105 Peter H. Sand, The History and Origin of International Environmental Law , Peter H Sand Ed., Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, UK, 2015, distinguish three or four periods or phases of Envionmental Laws: the “traditional era”, until 1970 (Stockholm Conference), the formative or modern era, from Stockholm to the 1992 UN Rio de Janeiro Conference, and the “post modern era”, from Rio onwards.