Environmental licensing of public utility works in permanent preservation areas in the north coast of Bahia

Abstract

Environmental Licensing (EL), as one of the instruments soft he National Environmental Policy, has the primary function of regulating potentially impacting activities. In the set of regulated standards, for its operationalization, exceptional conditions were established for interventions classified as a public utility, including the possibility of suppressing vegetation of protected areas, such as the permanent preservation area (PPA). The criteria for the application of these exceptionalities were regulated by Conama Resolution 369/2006 and the Forest Code. Given this flexibility, it is relevant to the environmental licensing system. For this purpose, the methodological procedure adopted involved an analysis of LA processes in the Northern Coast of Bahia, documental, bibliographic research, and semi-structured interviews with the management agents. The results obtained allowed identifying fragilities and deficiencies of the environmental licensing process in APP in the region under study, highlighting among others a distortion and consequently abuse in the use of this exceptionality, as well as non-compliance with current norms with changes in sensitive areas such Restinga, dunes, the margin of rivers, streams and marshes, with consequent loss of important environmental functions.