📋 Tender Overview
The Environment Commission (CMA) approved this Tuesday (2) a project that creates the Free Rivers of the Amazon Program, a plan to promote the navigability and conservation of rivers in the region ().
The approved text is a substitute (alternative text) prepared by the rapporteur, senator Mecias de Jesus (Republicanos-RR), to the proposal presented by Sergio Petecao (PSD-AC). As the CMA has a final decision, the project will go through an additional round of voting in the collegiate body.
PL 4,199 seeks to integrate actions to promote safe and sustainable navigation on the regions rivers and protect water resources. According to the approved text, the program must make the socioeconomic development of the Legal Amazon compatible with the preservation of the quality of water resources; stimulate environmental education; and reduce pollution levels and environmental damage to the regions water bodies.
Incentives
Incentives for responsible social participation in resource management and the development of scientific research are also planned, in addition to the adoption of technological innovations in waterway transport. Finally, the plan should increase prevention and adaptation actions in the face of critical events that affect rivers, whether natural or caused by human intervention.
The new text eliminated the figure of the management committee, foreseen in the original proposal, and reinforced the role of river basin committees and federative entities, avoiding overlapping bodies and promoting integration with the National Water Resources Management System.
The rapporteur also expanded the programs objectives, including encouraging institutional arrangements and encouraging debate about waterway transport in the region.
Among the established principles, sustainable development, citizen participation and the polluter pays principle stand out, according to which anyone who causes damage to the environment must be responsible for the costs of preventing, reducing damage or repairing these impacts. The plan also reinforces the need for continuous maintenance of waterways through dredging, integrated management and adequate signage.
Impaired navigability
According to Sergio Petecao, factors such as lack of infrastructure, pollution and environmental degradation hinder the use of the navigable potential of rivers in the Northern Region. As a result, currently less than 31% of the 63 thousand kilometers of rivers with navigable potential in Brazil are commercially explored.
The author argued that the program could change this scenario:
-- In Acre and Amazonas, we depend a lot on rivers. And every year there are changes in the riverbeds. So, the idea is that governments can provide traffic to these people who live on the banks of rivers -- said Petecao.
-- Today it is no longer the river that needs to adapt to boats. With existing technology, it is perfectly possible for each waterway to have the type of vessel adapted -- added Senator Wellington Fagundes (PL-MT).
Senator Fabiano Contarato (PT-ES), president of the CMA, stated that it is necessary to see the reality of communities, avoiding academicist positions:
-- We can go hand in hand, preserving the environmental agenda, but with social and economic justice for that population, leveraging the economy, achieving productivity and returns to the population.
Agencia Senado (Reproduction authorized upon citation from Agencia Senado)
