Figure 4 – Average score of the policies selected for the
Legislation axis.
It is foreseen for the implementation of the PNMSA actions the design of
a legal framework within the state, municipal and micro watershed
levels. Therefore, it is important to survey laws and rules already in
place in order to avoid overlapping. Both PNMA and PNCDMES received high
scores on Legislation axis (Figure 4) since these policies establish
legal tools to provide environmental and socioeconomic adequacy at the
regional level. The PNMA includes mechanisms such as Ecological Economic
Zoning (ZEE) (Brasil, 2002) and the assessment of environmental impacts
of potentially polluting activities. In the PNCDMS, in addition to the
ZEE mechanism, there is a set of state-level survey of plans, programs
and projects aimed at the recovery of degraded lands. Also important,
the elaboration of State Action Plans to Combat Desertification and
Mitigate the Effects of Drought undergoes legal enforcement (Annex 1).
It is worth mentioning that the PNRH also received a high score within
this axis (Figure 4). The PNRH is a decentralized policy with high
territorial capillarity, which adopts regulation tools undertaken by
participatory consulting bodies at lower levels, the watershed
committees (IPEA, 2012). This governance model although increasing
government authority on policy drivers at higher levels, reduces
government authority on decision making for concrete actions at the
local level (Ollaik and Medeiros, 2011).
In the PNMSA, in addition to the integration of existing public policy
mechanisms with a focus on surveying regional environmental and
socioeconomic characteristics for soil and water conservation purposes,
it seems to be essential to the PNMSA to include inspection system to
ensure the sustainable use, management and conservation of soil and
water in different regions of the country. The future policy must seek
for mechanisms to integrate technical assistance and rural extension
services, in order to correct inadequacies detected at the local level.
In addition, it is showed on Table 1 the ideal proposition of a fund to
receive financial contributions in order to invest in priority areas for
soil and water conservation actions (Table 1). ´5.2 - Prevention Figure 5 - Average score for policies selected for the
Prevention axis.
An important line of actions for the future PNMSA is related to the
prevention of soil and water degradation. Preventive mechanisms were
found in the PNMA and Forest Code policies, which revealed the highest
scores in this topic (Figure 5). Through the implementation of ZEE, the
PNMA advances on territorial management improvements. This policy
articulated, the production of relevant information for decision making,
expanded, institutional bases for zoning projects and promoted open
dialogues with sectoral policies. Concerns with environmental
conservation units and indigenous lands should also be taken into
account in the process of prioritization of prevention zones, as well as
strengthening and expanding the connections between the role of ZEE in
territorial and environmental management instruments at different levels
(TCU, 2008).
The Forest Code includes the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) as a
mechanism allowing voluntary public electronic registration of land use
and forest coverage of rural properties. This governmental system is
applied to control, monitoring, environmental and economic planning and
for fighting deforestation (IPEA, 2016). This mechanism also allows the
availability of strategic information about environmental vulnerability
and adequate preventive measures for decision making. However, the task
remains challenging when bridging projects´ execution to real life
situations focused on the implementation of the agreed guidelines. To
overcome this gap the new PNMSA must foreseen mechanisms to reduce the
time between zoning products generation and its integration into policy
cycles, governmental planning and decision-making processes. The stock
of soil and water preventive measures shall be ready when the technical
stream of Kingdom´s multiple stream models is moving to open the window
of opportunity and influence the agenda setting of territorial policies
(Capella, 2018).