Question: When did Japan begin to introduce environmental protection laws?
About the article "Japan", section "Environment".

Candidate passages:
To protect the environment and public health by ensuring compliance with environmental laws and demonstrating leadership in environmental stewardship. 
The massive nationwide rebuilding efforts in the aftermath of World War II, and the development of the following decades, led to even further urbanization and construction.
The construction industry in Japan is one of its largest, and while Japan maintains a great many parks and other natural spaces, even in the hearts of its cities, there are few major restrictions on where and how construction can be undertaken.
Alex Kerr, in his books "Lost Japan" and "Dogs & Demons", is one of a number of authors who focuses heavily on the environmental problems related to Japan's construction industry, and the industry's lobbying power preventing the introduction of stricter zoning laws and other environmental protection efforts. 
China once believed that humans could and should conquer nature, and that only capitalist societies suffered from environmental damage.
But in 1972, when China sent a delegation to the First United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, such line of reasoning began to change.
In 1974 the government's Leading Group for Environmental Protection was established with equivalent in the provinces.
This later evolved into the National Environmental Protection Agency in 1988.
In 1983, environmental protection was declared a basic national principle in China and in consequence, key principles for environmental protection was proposed by the government of China, which include ‘prevention is the main, then control’ polluter responsible for pollution control’.
Subsequently, a national regulatory framework was formulated, composed of a series of environmental laws, executive regulations, standards and measures (on all the major environmental sectors, starting with marine protection and water in 1982 and 1984 respectively.
In 1994, China laid out a broad strategy to achieve sustainable development and by 1996, China had already developed its first five-year plan on environmental protection.
At the national level, China has more than 20 environmental laws adopted by the National People's Congress, there are also over 140 executive regulations issued by the state council, and a series of sector regulations and environmental standards set by the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA).
In 2003, the government of China proposed a new development concept emphasizing humanism and attempting to achieve sustainable development and harmony between man and nature, as well as coordinated socio-economic progress among various regions and with foreign countries.
At the international level, China has also participated in treaties such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Millennium Development Goals, which include poverty alleviation, environmental protection and sustainable development.
Institutionally, the national regulatory framework is vertically implemented through a four-tier management system i.e., national, provincial, municipal and county levels.
The latter three levels are governed directly by their corresponding authorities in terms of both finance and personnel management, while SEPA is only responsible for their substantial operation.
The enactment of the various environmental laws, instruments and regulations through the last two decades was paralleled by a stepwise increase of the bureaucratic status and capacity of these environmental authorities.
For instance, the NEPA was elevated via the National Environmental Protection Bureau to the National Environmental Protection Agency (in 1988), and in 1998 it received ministerial status as SEPA.
By 1995, the ‘environmental state’ of China had got over 88,000 employees across China and by 2004 it had grown to over 160,000 employees.
According to Jahiel (1998: 776 cited in Carter et al., 2007) on this environmental bureaucracy: ‘‘the past 15 years has seen the assembly of an extensive institutional system nation-wide and the increase of its rank’’.
Besides the SEPA, the State Development Planning Commission (SDPC) and the State Economic and Trade Commission (SETC) are important national state agencies in environmental protection, especially since the recent governmental reorganization. 
In the period of rapid economic growth after World War II, environmental policies were downplayed by the government and industrial corporations; as a result, environmental pollution was widespread in the 1950s and 1960s.
Responding to rising concern about the problem, the government introduced several environmental protection laws in 1970.
The oil crisis in 1973 also encouraged the efficient use of energy because of Japan's lack of natural resources.
Current environmental issues include urban air pollution (NOx, suspended particulate matter, and toxics), waste management, water eutrophication, nature conservation, climate change, chemical management and international co-operation for conservation.
Japan is one of the world's leaders in the development of new environment-friendly technologies, and is ranked 26th best in the world in the 2014 Environmental Performance Index.
As a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol, and host of the 1997 conference which created it, Japan is under treaty obligation to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions and to take other steps to curb climate change.
The "Leprosy Prevention laws" of 1907, 1931 and 1953, the last one only repealed in 1996, permitted the segregation of patients in sanitaria where forced abortions and sterilization were common, even if the laws did not refer to it, and authorized punishment of patients "disturbing peace" as most Japanese leprologists believed that vulnerability to the disease was inheritable.
There were a few Japanese leprologists such as Noburo Ogasawara who argued against the "isolation-sterilization policy" but he was denounced as a traitor to the nation at 15th Conference of the Japanese Association of Leprology in 1941.
Under the colonial Korean "Leprosy prevention ordinance", Korean patients were also subjected to hard labor.
In postwar Japan, the was enacted in 1948 to replace the National Eugenic Law of 1940.
The indications of the Eugenic Protection Law included leprosy.
This condition discontinued when the law changed into Women's Body Protection Law.