In Brazil, costal areas are a source of development. Before 1950, Brazilian government didn’t take care of environment because costal areas were source of profits and development. In fact, the tourism sector, fishing activity (which generates some 800 thousand jobs), oil exploitation and shipping in the coastal are the main Brazilian resources.
But, all human activities treat to biodiversity in the marine areas. That is why, Brazilian government decided to react in adopting different measures in order to encourage economic development while protecting costal areas thanks to the society awareness of the environment protection.
First, Brazil created lot of institutions. Two of them facilitate the coordination among the organizations responsible for costal and marine environmental issues:
Ø The Inter Ministerial Commission for Marine Resources (CRM), created in 1974 to coordinate the National Marine Resources Policy.
Ø The National Environment Council (CONAMA), presided by the Minister of Environment. It has representatives from Ministries, State Governments, Local Governments, and trade associations for industry, commerce and agriculture.
These two organisations created a Costal Zone Management Integration Group which created a lot of organizations, associations in order to coordinate bodies.
After that, they took a lot of decisions. Different laws represent the main legal instruments which respect both integrated coastal zone management and marine environmental protection. These laws are being adopted in several sectors of the economy like the fishing activity, tourism and all the activities concerned by pollution.
The Brazilian government introduces some new strategies, policies and plans in order to ensure its sustainable use through measures to control, protect, preserve and recover natural resources and costal zone ecosystems.
For example, The National Policy for the Environmental Management of Solid Waste has some fundamental principles: the non-generation of waste; the minimization of waste; reuse; recycling; appropriate treatment and final disposal of waste. What’s more, in Brazil, 35% of the total energy consumed is hydroelectric, 25% biomass-based, which means that renewable resources supply around two thirds of the energy requirements of the country.
In order to understand these measures we will focus on the example of Santos. It is on the coast, near São Paulo. Tourism generates the main part of the income; it represents the two thirds of the economy. But Santos suffered from an economic recession when the pollution of coastal waters threatened tourism. Ø That is why, the City Hall set up the Beaches of Santos Rehabilitation Programme in 1991. First, the City Hall turned away the water polluted by canals towards a recycling plant. Then, created the main system of evacuation. In 1993, the beaches of Santos were clean once again.
Ø Santos has also an enormous potential for the ecological tourism. In fact, it developed ecotourism activities in the forest of Atlantic Ocean.
Ø The municipality also set up another big program, the “Dique project”. All shantytowns are being replaced by houses at two levels and their inhabitants can purchase them. This program generates 250 jobs and improves the level of life of these citizens.
Ø The city also tackled the garbage problem. A legion of independent companies, which collected waste, now also collect bottles every week, bottles and paper in order to be recycled.
Eric SUP 3
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