Japan's Information Disclosure Law, which vests the sovereign public with a legally enforceable right of access to central government files, took effect on April 1, 2001. In what was believed to be a "last-minute rush" to circumvent this new system, many government ministries and agencies destroyed mountains of official documents during fiscal 2000 that ended March 31, 2001. According to findings later released by Access-Info Clearinghouse Japan, an incorporated nonprofit organization, the volume of documents ditched by the Finance Ministry and the Environment Ministry was more than double that of the previous fiscal year, while the volume discarded by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries surged 21-fold.