GEO Brasil - UNEP

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3. Institutional Context and Legal Ordinance
in the Environmental Sector
The role of the State has been changing substantially in
view of differentiated political contexts throughout the last
few decades. Since 1972, when the first world conference
on the environment took place in Stockholm, and
continuing throughout the 80s, this role has primarily been
characterised as a supplier of goods and services and as a
regulator of the use and occupation of the national territory.
From the 90s to the present, the Brazilian State has suffered
a series of re-formulations oriented not to predict but to
strengthen its role as manager of a programme the
implementation of wich is society’s responsibility. The
implied fact that these programmes integrate a set of policies
whose formulation of wich is still the State’s responsibility,
with the participation of the society, has not always been
given due consideration.
3.1 Legal and Institutional Ordainment
The amount of laws, decrees, provisional measures and
their variations approved in the last three decades is, per se,
an important indicator of significant alterations in the
relationships of the State with society, the territory and the
environment in the 1970s. The centralising and
concentrating resources planning system used to submit
other government levels to their precepts and held territorial
ordainment of the country as a development condition in
view of the model of nation they wished to substantiate.
The strategic perspective which permeated the various
policies of impact on the territory – which emanated from
the federal government at that time, liased with the
centralisation of the public management then being
practised. This used to be refuted by legislation in categories
identified as management, definition of parameters and
disputes over the allocation of financial resources. The
Federal Constitution of 1988 introduced deep changes in
the role of the Federation with the consequent alteration of
Chart 3-Policies and Programmes
Environmental Management
DECREE 73,030 30/10/73 Ministry of the Interior/ Special Secretariat for the Environment
LAW 6,938 31/08/81 National Environment System
Actions
Public Interest Civil Society Organisations (defence, preservation and
conservation of the environment and promotion of sustainable development)
Policy Formulation: Participation in national Councils and agencies
responsible for the formulation of Policies on the Environment, Water Resources etc.
Participation in State Environment Councils and Municipal Councils For Environment Defence
Participation in the operational scope - field research, advice and implementation
of environment conservation projects and sustainable development experiences
National Policy on Biodiversity
Provisional Measure 2,126 22/06/01
Objective: define a national strategy based in directions and instruments in order to
Preservingthe environment and the biological diversity
National Biodiversity Programme - PRONABIO
DECREE 1,354 29/12/94
Objectives: (I) promote partnerships between private and public sectors to support
biodiversity conservation and sustainable use; (II) develop policies,
promote research, establish information networks and international co-operation,
participate in instrumental and methodological standardisation, support the capacitation of
human resources and the institutional development, support demonstration projects of
biodiversity conservation and sustainable use .
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