The lack of public policies aimed at meeting the demand of the black and peripheral population living in areas of environmental risk – such as in places affected by landslides on the north coast of São Paulo – is an option of public administrations and demonstrates environmental racism. The assessment is made by specialists from two civil society organizations, Greenpeace and Instituto Polis. “[O racismo ambiental] it is closely linked to segregation and exclusion in relation to the right to have the environment in a given region balanced. We observe the political choice, the criteria for defining places that will have public policies. And they are not always able to reach the population of the hills, black and peripheral”, says Rodrigo Jesus, from the Climate and Justice Campaign, from Greenpeace. According to him, the lack of priority for the black and peripheral populations still demonstrates negligence. “The Public Power does not give a level of priority to these areas because we are talking about places that, from the point of view of institutional policy, have already become accustomed to this lack of access, the absence of public policy. Yes, there is negligence by the Public Power there”, he adds. The emergence of the concept of environmental racism is linked to the civil rights movement in the United States, in the 50s and 60s. It is used to refer to the unfair division of the burdens of environmental degradation, which systematically fall on blacks and peripheral populations, and the lack of infrastructure destined to the places where these groups live, as well as policies to mitigate the effects of environmental degradation. For the researcher and advisor at the Polis Institute, Ana Sanches, environmental racism also appears in the lack of representatives of these populations in the bodies of power that decide where public resources will be used and how the effects of climate change will be combated. “The people who suffer most from the impacts of the absence of public policies are not those who are building public policies, they are not those who are planning cities”, she says. She questions, for example, the criteria used in recent years by governments to decide which projects would have priority on the north coast of São Paulo. “The government has money, but it prioritizes other investments. We had, for example, on the north coast, the doubling of [rodovia] Tamoios and is discussing the expansion of the Port of Santos. What do these two works improve when we think about the issue of the climate crisis? Which is more urgent?” he asks. “What are the works that we could start doing now to think about people’s safety and lives? Without life, without the city, without the environment, there is no point in having a bridge or a road”, he adds. The rains that hit the municipalities of the north coast of São Paulo last weekend are among the greatest tragedies in the history of the state. It was also the highest amount of rain ever recorded in the country, reaching 682 millimeters in Bertioga and 626 millimeters in São Sebastião, in the 24-hour period. The hardest hit region was Barra do Sahy, in São Sebastião, where slopes collapsed and houses and people were buried. One person died in Ubatuba and at least 49 in São Sebastião.
Agência Brasil
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