As políticas ambientais do governo federal sob a luz do princípio da precaução: a crise na Amazônia

Abstract

Warding off the effects of climate change and mitigating environmental destruction is one of the biggest challenges in modern society. In spite of several policies and ecological burdens shouldered by the brazilian government, the Amazon, one of the world’s largest ecological assets, has suffered an alarming increase in deforestation rates while several protection mechanisms have been interrupted. The present work aims to shed light on the role played by public policies enacted by the federal government in solving these issues and question whether the government is acting in accordance with the precautionary principle established by item IV, 1st paragraph of article 225 of the Constitution of the Federative Republic of Brazil. To that end, the role played by public agents in the rampant increases in forest fires and deforestation throughout the last years will be dissected, with a focus on the downtrend in the process of establishing indigenous and environmental protection demarcation lines, the termination of credit restriction policies for deforestation-related businesses, and the lacklustre budget for strategic governmental organizations tasked with preventing said practices, such as the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The method chosen to achieve that goal will be exploratory research, as a profound investigation will take place in order to clarify the discussed subject. Results point towards intentional undermining of environmental protection mechanisms, which leads to clear violation of the constitutional duty to abide to the precautionary principle. These intentional acts fall upon administrative responsibility as established by article 70 of Law n. 9.605/99. Beyond the subject of responsibilization, the present work aims also to demonstrate how public participation and organization at societal and global levels can contribute in mitigating the damages caused.