Dilma prepares her first environmental package for next Tuesday

06/02/2012 - 10h10

President Dilma Rousseff should create the first protected areas of her term next Tuesday. The new decrees are part of a package of measures to commemorate the World Environment Day.

June 5, an official date on the UN calendar, has Brazil as the host of the celebrations because of the Rio +20 conference this month.

It will create two extractive reserves, approve six indigenous lands and announce the inclusion of more families in the Green Stipend.

The announcement comes less than a week after the Senate approved an interim measure that reduces seven protected areas in the Amazon for the construction of eight hydroelectric dams of the PAC.

The cuts, made without technical studies and criticized by environmentalists and local communities, include the Amazon National Park, the oldest in the region. The MP is the object of a lawsuit of unconstitutionality in the Supreme Court.

A decree may also be signed establishing sustainability criteria for public procurements.

Dilma wants to take advantage of the data to give a shift in her environmental discourse, a week before the start of the Rio conference and with the whole world demanding leadership in this area by Brazil.

On June 5 of last year, for example, not one created conservation area was created, making her the first president since the end of military rule not to create protected areas in her first year in office.

EYE ON TRASH

With an eye on the agenda of Rio +20, the Administration is also considering a program of subsidies and public funding to end the dumps in the country and establish a national agenda to recycle solid waste.

Dubbed internally Brazil without Dumps and Recycle Brazil, the proposals would dedicate federal funds for construction of landfills and establish recycling targets for more than a hundred cities.

The idea is to make a national campaign to raise awareness and educate the public about solid waste management starting with the separation of household waste.

There is still no set amount of disbursement, only a preliminary value in excess of R$1.8 billion, to be released by 2015.

The idea being negotiated is to concentrate the actions of Brazil without Dumps in the Southeast and Northeast, where there are more critical cases. In place of the dumps - the proposal under review is to eliminate nearly a thousand of them in the next three years - the Union wants to help municipalities to install landfills.

The actions should also include the selective collection and recycling logistics expansion. It will also include initiatives to benefit the garbage collectors.

Official figures show that Brazil discards nearly 200 000 tons of solid waste per day. Of these, less than 2% is recycled. Almost 40% is released into the environment in a manner deemed inappropriate.