A violação de direitos nos processos de licenciamento ambiental de usinas hidrelétricas no Brasil: um estudo de caso da UHE Tucuruí

Abstract

Environmental licensing is an instrument of environmental policy that discipline the implementation of activities or enterprises that cause environmental damage. The present work aims to discuss the challenges faced in the environmental licensing processes of hydroelectric plants in Brazil regarding the history of human and environmental rights violations historically linked to them. Therefore, a case study of the licensing process of the Tucuruí Hydroelectric Power Plant, in the State of Pará, was carried out. It was sought to demonstrate how political and economic factors can act in a harmful way to the proper fulfillment of this process that protects the environment and, consequently, how they generate damage to the populations affected by the enterprise. A study was also carried out from a critical perspective of the effects of hydroelectric plants on nature and the social environment in which they are inserted, raising debates about what allows violations of rights to occur even with current legislation that should prevent them. In addition, the relationship between the construction of dams and these violations of rights as a form of “planned neglect” was addressed. Finally, it dealt with the relevance and urgency of the institution of a policy aimed at protecting and enforcing the rights of populations affected by dams as a form of resistance to the current hegemonic model of construction of large projects that has prevailed since the 80s.