After the Senate approve the project that changes laws on environmental licensing in Brazil, the Minister of the Environment, Marina Silvagoes to the House Infrastructure Commission on Tuesday (26) to talk about the creation of a new conservation unit in the equatorial margin in northern Brazil.
The request that asks Marina to attend the board was submitted by Senator Lucas Barreto (PSD-AP). In the document, the parliamentarian mentions studies done by the University of São Paulo (USP) and supported by the Ministry of Environment on the creation of a marine conservation unit with an area of 35 million hectares.
According to the senator, if materialized, the unit will occupy the region of Amapá, extending from the border of the territorial sea of French Guiana with Brazil to the marine limit between Piauí and Ceará.
In the document, the parliamentarian states that the creation of conservation units promoted by the latest governments seeks to “generate poverty and obstruct the development engines so needed for the states of the Atlantic Amazon (Amapá, Pará and Maranhão)”.
According to the Ministry of Environment, the creation of coastal and marine conservation units is part of a global biodiversity conservation strategy.
Marine criticism
The project on, approved by the Senate last week, has been harshly criticized by Marina. The proposal increases state skills in the licensing process and simplifies licenses.
In practice, the project aims to facilitate and bureaucracy licenses in the country for enterprises and activities that impact or involve the use of natural resources. The proposal, however, is criticized by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change and Environmental Entities.
During the lecture Magna at the 33rd Brazilian Congress of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering (ABES) on Monday (26), Marina argued that the legislation needs to be updated, but should not give up the country’s environmental protection and that speeding up enterprises does not mean losing the environmental quality of Brazil.
“I do not say that the Environmental Licensing Law does not need updates, that it does not need to be visited so that we can gain more agility, but agility does not mean loss of quality. It does not mean giving up rule to protect the environment,” he said.
Equatorial margin
Last week, the Senate approved the bill that changes the Environmental Licensing Act with a Senate President Amendment, David Alcolumbre (Union-AP), to flexes processes and advance oil exploration at the mouth of Amazonas, on the equatorial margin.
Alcolumbre’s amendment creates a Special Environmental License (LAE), a new modality of authorization, directed to projects considered “strategic”.
For the climate observatory environmental organization, the new modality created by the amendment may be the subject of “political pressures and interests” by giving priority to some enterprises.
The stretch was included in the project the same week that the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) approved the plan presented by Petrobras to conduct studies that can result in oil exploration on the equatorial margin.
Ibama’s decision was celebrated by alcohubre. “Although the licensing process for drilling is still underway, the technical advance approved today reinforces the seriousness of the project and the commitment to strict environmental criteria,” said the Senate president, in a statement.
