EVANGELISTA, G. M.; http://lattes.cnpq.br/2844483593983736; EVANGELISTA, Gilson Marques.
Résumé:
In the 1910s, the Brazilian State took a political decision to combat the serious problems
generated by the cyclical droughts that ravaged the semi-arid region of the Northeast. For this
purpose, a state entity, now known as the National Department of Works Against Droughts -
DNOCS - was created to command this arduous task. The strategy chosen was the construction
of large dams – such as the one in São Gonçalo – and the fixation of farmers and fishermen on
their banks. This formed, over the years, a riverside population, to occupy and exploit, through
the practice of subsistence agriculture, the public lands located there, which would be future
permanent protection areas - APP. The question raised is: in that anthropic occupation of the
APP, environmental crimes were being committed? and was the performance of the Federal
Public Ministry in the case the most appropriate? The general objective of this work was to
research the criminal consequences arising from this anthropic occupation of the banks of the
São Gonçalo public dam, located in the rural area of the municipality of Sousa - PB. The specific
objectives were to study these consequences in environmental and environmental criminal law
through the performance of the Federal Public Ministry - MPF - in Sousa, with the help of the
Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources - IBAMA, after
complaints of alleged practices harmful to the environment. environment, made by people to
IBAMA. The justification for the research is that the São Gonçalo reservoir is responsible for
human water supply drinking water, for an estimated population of eighty thousand inhabitants,
in a region polarized by Sousa, and this occupation, together with the agricultural activity in the
APP around that spring could harm the health of this population, in addition to threatening the
existing vegetation in that APP , which as such, has the prohibition of building and suppression
of vegetation (native or not) existing there. The methodology used was the qualitative approach,
by consulting the bibliography, including the governing legislation, and the analysis of seven
criminal actions brought by the MPF in Sousa, against the riverside people. The main results
found were that Brazil is avant-garde in the legal protection of the environment (Forest Code,
Decree 23.373/1934); the occupation of the APP under study took place on a regular basis, in
view of the environmental rules of the DNOCS, not an invasion, as the MPF dealt with; the
action of the MPF, with the help of IBAMA, which did not detect the clash between
constitutional rights (right to housing, to work, human dignity versus a balanced environment).
As a positive legacy, there is the cessation of agricultural exploitation of the APP on the bank
of the São Gonçalo weir, which provided its preservation, due to the great resilience of the
typical species of the Caatinga biome, resulting from the ability of (self) regeneration of these
plants.