Descentralização do licenciamento ambiental na região do cariri cearense: desafios e perspectivas.

Abstract

As a fundamental device for environmental protection, environmental licensing is unveiled by Law No. 6,938 / 81, which is one of the instruments of the National Environmental Politics. Traditionally, since its inception, the execution of environmental licensing has been the responsibility of the union and the states, while the municipalities have been on the fringes of this process. With Law No. 140/2011 there was a significant change, the municipalities have legitimacy in the performance of local environmental management. In 2016, COEMA launched Resolution No. 01 defining the activities of local impact and the obligations of municipal entities should fulfill to assume environmental management. In the state of Ceará, SEMACE is responsible for environmental licensing, with units centralized in the capital and in two cities in the interior, with little structure to meet the demands is unsatisfactory. The present work is an analysis of the decentralization of environmental licensing in the Cariri region, aiming to understand the challenges involved and to point out alternatives for improvement. To achieve the proposed, research was conducted in municipal environmental agencies about its operation and structure, through direct contact with managers and technicians. In addition, we consulted the bibliographic references of the area and the legislation applied to the sector. In the Cariri region, of the 29 municipalities, only 4 operate in environmental licensing. The assimilation of this information by the population and public authorities is relevant for the formulation of public policies that induce the full municipalization of environmental licensing.