Ambiente e democracia participativa : a experiência do CONAMA

Abstract

The National Council of the Environment (CONAMA) was, at the same time, a product and a participant in the democratization process of Brazil, when it was created by Law 6.938/1981, with deliberative power and civil society participation. In almost three decades of continuous operation, the Council congregated government agencies, private sector and leaders of the environmental movement, who were denouncing the impacts of growth and expansion policy of the military government. The emergence of this movement, coupled with an international backdrop of concern about the effects of economic growth, leading to depletion and degradation of natural resources, spurred the implementation of the National Policy and System of Environment. Until they constituted environmental agencies, as IBAMA (1989), state and local agencies, and the Ministry of Environment (1992), the Conama guided and ruled on environmental policy, passing important resolutions up today. After the 1988 Constitution, there was a lowering of its powers, from responding to a Government Council. In addition, the environmental movement grew stronger with the new social and environmental trend, driven by movements such as the rubber tappers and affected people by hydroelectric dams. The UNCED-92 also played a role. The Council has proceeded to three major restructuring, with improvements in its procedures and composition, but without a balanced composition between the segments (NGOs, trade unions, indigenous people, scientific sector and private sector). The limits and advances promoted by this Council relate themselves to the evolution of participatory democracy in Brazil. They are also experiencing the arguments of Habermas democratic theory, confirming the communicative rationality and argumentative process as a way to collective construction of the common good and public interest, according the statements of their own advisers.