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ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Growth Plan Holds No Surprises, No Advances

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 25 2007 (IPS) - The Brazilian government&#39s new "growth acceleration programme" contains no major novelties, to the relief of environmentalists. The projects causing most concern were already proposed years ago and have been the object of criticism ever since.

Before Monday&#39s announcement of the new plan, officials had complained that environmental requirements threw obstacles in the way of economic growth, "creating fears that flexibilisation and some fast-track mechanism for approving works of infrastructure might be introduced," the coordinator of the policy and law programme at the Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA), André Lima, told IPS.

But in the end, it turned out that no such measures were included in the programme, Lima said.

The threats to the environment in Brazil, like the construction of large hydroelectric dams and the paving of roads in the Amazon jungle region, have long been known, and although they pose risks to the environment, their main problems involve the question of whether they are viable from an economic standpoint, said Roberto Smeraldi, head of Friends of the Earth Amazonia.

This situation is illustrated by the three largest hydropower stations included in the growth acceleration programme (PAC), which are to provide 30 percent of the total generating capacity of the 79 hydroelectric power plants announced in the new plan.

The Belo Monte power plant in the eastern Amazon jungle is a new version of projects proposed in the 1980s to harness the Xingú River, which were cancelled due to resistance from indigenous peoples and environmentalists.

While still affecting nearby indigenous territory, and with a court order standing against it, the Belo Monte station&#39s main problem is the low flow rate of the Xingú in the dry season, when its electricity generating capacity could be reduced by two-thirds, according to a university study.

In order to be viable it would need complementary dams upriver to control the river flow, but these would flood more indigenous lands, Smeraldi said.

Another two power stations on the Madeira River, in the southern part of Brazil&#39s Amazon jungle, have also been redesigned to limit flooding of forests and villages by using bulb turbines. The technology is old and its efficiency has not been proven on this scale, which includes plans for production of 3,150 megawatts at the Santo Antonio station and 3,300 megawatts at the Jirau plant, the environmentalist said.

Construction costs are also high – close to 10 billion dollars – not including investment in some 2,500 kilometres of power lines to deliver the electricity to the large consumer markets in southeastern Brazil.

All these obstacles hamper the government&#39s plan to start construction work so that the power stations can come onstream at the beginning of the next decade, in order to avoid power restrictions like those adopted in 2001, and to ensure an energy supply for economic growth expected to reach five percent a year.

Thus the PAC does not give rise to new environmental concerns, but simply reaffirms a package of a large number of energy, transport, sanitation and housing projects which are already under way or in the preparation stage, according to Smeraldi.

The plan envisages a total investment of 503.9 billion reals (235 billion dollars) up to 2010, as well as removing blockages in the economy through tax breaks and the elimination of bureaucratic and financial obstacles.

But Lima is concerned about the announcement that Article 23 of the constitution, which establishes competence in general terms, is to be regulated in regard to licensing and inspecting works that have an environmental impact.

A complementary draft law sent to Congress would distribute jurisdiction between national, state and municipal environmental bodies.

The goal is to avoid conflicts and legal action, which slow down the licensing process and project execution.

The worrying thing is that the draft law introduced in Congress contains omissions, such as a failure to define basic conditions for municipal authorities to approve initiatives when their environmental impact is limited to the municipal level, Lima said.

"In practice, those powers are being decentralised, but without providing solid structures for the exercise of that responsibility, by means of creating municipal environmental councils, social participation and input from experts," he said.

Another problem is that the proposal stipulates that at each level, the same environmental authority is responsible for inspecting and regulating the projects it licenses.

This provision may hinder the work of the Brazilian Environmental Institute (IBAMA) against deforestation, since the individual states will have the power to authorise logging by landowners.

These are questions that can be corrected during the proceedings in Congress, Lima acknowledged, but he pointed out that the level of support for environmental questions is rather low in parliament.

The PAC has not added much to threats against the environment, but neither does it represent a change in the development model being pursued, Lima complained.

Sustainable development was not one of the guiding principles of the PAC, designed to double the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate with respect to 2003, when leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva began his first term of office.

Although the programme does not weaken the environmental protection system, it does not strengthen it either, nor does it increase the budget or improve the management or operational capacity of the bodies in charge of environmental regulation, said Lima.

In Smeraldi&#39s opinion, the PAC was "a missed opportunity." Since the 1980s the Brazilian government has had few occasions when budgetary conditions permitted the lowering of taxes to stimulate economic activity.

Now it has granted tax exemptions in some sectors, like information technology and construction, but without any distinctions, when it would have been better to grant them only to activities and businesses that create employment and more technological innovation, that train their personnel and promote sustainable development in some form, he said.

That would have been the way to promote development effectively, Smeraldi said.