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Environmental Law
In 1981, Federal Law No. 6,938 provided the Environmental
National Policy, which aimed at the preservation, improvement and recovery of the environmental quality at federal, state and municipal levels.
Briefly after that, in 1988, the
Federal Constitution was enacted and dedicated a whole chapter to environmental protection. It was possible to oversee Brazil’s desire
to protect life itself, once it set
forth the obligation to preserve the environment and the government established a series of criminal and administrative sanctions, as well as enforced reparation duty if damaging activities were found.
Therefore, it is safe to say that Brazilian environmental law is enforced by all three levels of the Public Administration, and by the competent licensing authority, in a way that business endeavors in Brazil with a risk of environmental damage may have to comply with the Federal, State and Municipal rulings and regulations.
As provided by Law 6,938/1981,
at the Federal level, the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Natural Renewable Resources (Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis – IBAMA) is the Federal Environmental Protection Agency responsible for implementing the National Environmental Policy. IBAMA is also responsible for
the implementation of rules and regulations enacted by the
Specific regulations applied to those companies are designed to
be a middle
term between
the regulations applicable to public companies and those applicable to private companies in general.
National Environmental Council (Conselho Nacional do Meio Ambiente – CONAMA), inspections of environmental activities and
the conduction of environmental licensing proceedings, depending on the locality and the characteristics of the enterprise.
States and Municipalities, in turn, have their own environmental protection agencies, which are competent to enact rules and regulation in order to cover activities under their territories. While municipal environmental agencies may license activities
and enterprises with local impact, state environmental agencies are responsible for conducting licensing proceedings of enterprises and activities that are not covered by federal or municipal agencies.
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