GEO Brasil - UNEP

policies feedback
the previous centralising management trend and inevitable strengthening of
decentralising management forming a country/society consortium (Carvalho
2001).
Under the view of sustainable development, the environmental management
in Brazil relies on inadequate instruments to achieve the objectives of
environmental policy. The command and sectorial control principles have
prevailed, and this has occurred many times in detriment to principles of
integrated management and to the use of adequate economic instruments
(Chart 4).
3.1.1 Decentralisation,
Municipalisation and
Globalisation
A strong trend which emerges from
the dynamic territorial occupation in
the country points to strengthening
the complexity and fragmentation in
the use of the Brazilian territory. It also
points to the direction of the risks
originating from the deepening of the
inequalities which derive there from.
Indeed, according to “Furtado” (1992),
from the moment the growith motor
stops forming the domestic market
in order to integrate the international
economy, the synergy effects
generated by the inter-dependence of
the distinct regions in the country
disappear, thus considerably
weakening the links of solidarity
among them.
The control, management and planning instruments established by Law 6,938/
81 are limited to the sphere of the State environmental sectorial agencies. This
reinforces the sectorial character of the environmental management practised
in the country and presents results which are limited specially in combating
industrial pollution. There is even questionable efficiency.
The responsible institutions for the environment have very little control over
concrete problems generated by public sectorial agriculture, industry, urban
development, mineral exploration, forest resources and other infra-structure
policies in general. The environmental management practices are many times
limited to damage repair, such as reforestation, recovery of degraded areas,
reconstruction of urban environments, restoration of natural habitats and
rehabilitation of conservation units and ecological sanctuaries (IPEA 1997).
At present in Brazil, the population lives mostly in urban areas. Therefore,
urbanisation is an irreversible process intrinsically associated with the current
development model. The pressure that the concentration of people and activities
exercise over the space and the natural resources basis is rather substantial.
The condition of the urban environment expressed in the quality of the water,
air and soil, and the impacts of this process, specially over the health and
quality of life of the population, all require responses which encompass both
protection and recovery of the natural environment as well as reduction of deep
social inequalities in the production of environmental goods and services.
In this sense, one of the great
challenges nowadays has to do with
the limitations of the regulating
capacity of the national State over
society, the economy and the territory
in a globalised world in which people
already live with a number of factors
that make the national sovereignty
hazy. Maintaining internal cohesion
and amplifying social democracy
through participative management of
society over the territory and its
resources seem definitely to be
themes that are already being entered
in the political agenda of the country
in the 21 st Century.
The governmental guideline towards
decentralisation has been requiring
significant changes in the policies
and programmes of development
and management of the national
territory. Law 9,433, the Waters Law,
determines that “the management of
water resources must be
decentralised” (Article 1,VI), and
adequate to the “physical, biological,
demographic, economic, social and
cultural diversities of the several
regions in the country”(Article 3,II),
and linked ofsoil use management
(Article 3,V).
232