GEO Brasil - UNEP

the State of Activities in Marine and Coastal Areas
the state of the environmet in Brazil
Sul/SC, Porto Alegre/RS and Rio
Grande/RS) are located at or intimately
connected with Brazilian metropolitan
areas
Most Brazilian ports do not have the
adequate structure for environmental
management, neither for day-by-day
control of residues and other
environmental impacts, nor in regard
to contingency plans for accidents, nor
in relation to port expansion and
modernisation projects
In Vitória, capital of the State of
Espírito Santo, the Tubarão Port
Complex gives access to deep
draught vessels It is one of the great
sources of pollution of the area,
releasing sewage, oil and mineral
transport residues It also has the
greatest movement of goods in the
country and the greatest release of
ballast water from both coastwise and
transcontinental ships
A large quantity of water species has
been brought to Brazil, and taken to
other places around the world, in the
ballast water The growing transfer of
noxious organisms has had
disastrous effects on marine
ecosystems, human health,
biodiversity, fishing activities and
marine cultivation It has become a
global problem due to the ecological
and economic impact caused by the
invasion of exotic species in various
ecosystems
per year, which is significant in global terms Around 40 million tonnes of ballast
water are thought to be discarded every year
Some of the species introduces in Brazil are the Charybdis hellerii crab found in
All Saints’ Bay, in Salvador, Bahia, and in Guanabara Bay, in Rio de Janeiro; the
Limnoperna fortunei bivalve introduced in the Guaíba Lake, in the State of Rio
Grande do Sul and also found in one of the Itaipu Hydroelectric Power Plant’s
units in April 2001; the Isognomon bicolor bivalve, and the Nephthea curvata and
Tubastraea coxima corals, fond in the Lakes Region and in the Ilha Grande Bay
According to the Brazilian Navy
Directorate of Ports and Coasts (DPC
- Diretoria de Portos e Costas da
Marinha do Brasil), Brazilian ports’
movements reach 400 million tonnes
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