“The State Budget [for 2012] foresees that the budget for Nature Conservation will be cut and that responsibilities will be transferred to private and local authorities. In this way, the State abdicates its responsibilities as guarantor of the universal heritage that is Nature» considers the national leadership of the League for the Protection of Nature (LPN).
LPN, in a statement that the Sul Informação had access, considers that “it is up to a central state to maintain and strengthen the essential structures for the Conservation of Nature and Biodiversity”.
The association recalls that, in OE2012, there is a reduction of 18,9% in operating expenses with general revenues from the Ministry of Agriculture, Sea, Environment and Spatial Planning, as well as 29,3% of national investment and 27,1, XNUMX% community investment.
But LPN reaffirms that «the policy of “more for less” for Nature Conservation is a very dangerous recipe”. «The costs of destroying Nature and increasing the degradation of the environment facilitated by this “savings” may be unaffordable for future generations!», stresses the oldest environmental association in Portugal.
As an example of this “dangerous” divestment, LPN refers to the case of nature watchers, stressing that “there is not a single watchman for 20 classified sites, monuments, protected landscapes and nature reserves belonging to the Network”, that “there are 183 nature watchers to 755.744 hectares of protected area – this means that for every 4129 hectares there is only one guard”, and that “the Natural Park of Douro Internacional, with 87.011 hectares, has only one guard”.
"Does the government intend to cut these troops?", asks the national leadership of the LPN. It is that, he argues, "even with the previous policies, the national panorama was devastating in terms of environmental crimes and destruction of nature and biodiversity."
For this reason, he considers it to be “essential to keep vigilant of nature with important functions of proximity to the population, information, education and inspection, as well as it is essential to maintain many other structures that have worked until today in the preservation of the environment”.
Does MAMAOT's spending go up or down?
But the League takes its criticism of OE2012 further. And so he underscores that, from the analysis carried out on the budget for the Ministry of Agriculture, Sea, Environment and Spatial Planning (MAMAOT), it appears “that this will increase by 1,9% in terms of effective expenditure”. «This could represent an increase in the bet on the sectors under the supervision of MAMAOT, but, while there is an increase in expenditure, there is a 16,6% devaluation of the State sector in this Budget. How can expenditure then increase?”, he asks.
In fact, according to the data contained in the OE2012 document, «the reclassification of Public Companies, namely privatizations, mergers and extinctions, contrary to what has been mentioned, will not increase the State's revenues, but its expenditures».
The LPN points out that «Public-Private Partnerships will cost the State 1389 million euros this year, but there is a forecast of an increase in expenses with these partnerships, which will reach a peak in 2016/2017 of more than 2100 million euros».
In this context, the League has several concerns arising from its analysis of the State Budget for 2012. The first has to do with the proposal to change the underlying principles of the National Ecological Reserve (REN) regime by adopting the principle of subsidiarity.
“This proposal, reaffirmed by elements of the executive and present since the electoral program, foresees a new paradigm for the management of protected areas based on the delivery of the same to private individuals, associations and autarchies. The LPN has already warned and reiterates that the national and regulated management of absolutely essential public goods, such as Nature and Biodiversity, requires a central, strong and reputable institution, which guarantees the execution of national and international strategies for the conservation of the Environment" .
Now, "since the ICNB was restructured and reduced in terms of funds and personnel", the association considers it to be "to be feared for the future of REN, a basic tool (although insufficient, and therefore it should be strengthened) for the maintenance of protected areas in Portugal" .
Another concern of LPN is the creation of a new National Strategy for the Conservation of Nature and Biodiversity within a strategic framework for creating opportunities for a sustainable economy.
The issue is that, according to the national leadership of the League, «the current National Strategy for the Conservation of Nature and Biodiversity has not yet been fully implemented, the government proposes to create a new strategy, based on the creation of opportunities for a sustainable economy» .
What LPN intends to do is “see the current strategy implemented and not create a new one that changes conservation paradigms in favor of a sustainable economy, an abstract definition open to concepts such as the commodification of natural resources”.
The League for the Protection of Nature is also concerned with the announced “flexibility of territorial and urban management”.
Although admitting that there may be a bureaucratic surplus with regard to entities responsible for territorial and urban management opinions, the LPN emphasizes that "it is an obvious observation that disorderly constructions in protected areas have proliferated in the country, the constant alteration of Municipal Master Plans , the proliferation of Projects of Potential National Interest (PIN) and other deregulation tools».
Therefore, the LPN claims not to understand "what is the interest of this flexibility, which should mean, in practice, the legalization of harmful and destructive practices of the natural heritage" and that it considers that it will translate into "the deregulation of management and an even greater openness to the territorial disorganization, with evident damages at the environmental and social level».
A fourth concern of the League in relation to the OE2012 proposals has to do with the planned «optimization of management models for water and waste services, through the broadening of the range of institutional solutions for business management», which the association considers to be « confirmation of the proposal to privatize the management of water and waste, through the privatization of the Águas de Portugal Group».
As the LPN has already mentioned, “the economic management of water, resulting from its privatization, had disastrous effects wherever it was tried, with the frequent paradox of overexploitation of water resources accompanied by the reduction of populations' access to water”.
The League says that “the privatization of water services on the rise entails the certainty of creating an oligopoly of water extraction at its source, just as the privatization of services on the downside (directly to users) will make the population's access dependent on private individuals. to water and the establishment of prices, which will tend to increase in a population with less and less purchasing power».
Despite its criticisms, LPN considers that the State Budget presents some "reasonable policies", "such as increasing the availability of land for agricultural activity, promoting a more integrated vision of the areas of animal and plant health and food security, benefiting burned areas of the National Network of Protected Areas, streamline ports, resources and maritime services, prepare strategic plans for the protection of large rivers, review and operationalize the National Program for the Efficient Use of Water, review the Land Law, urban rehabilitation policies, among others ».
However, he stresses, "these policies are not implemented in terms of the budget, so that many of them may not be feasible due to future financial constraints, already on the horizon."
At what cost will the public accounts be balanced?
In its long analysis of the State Budget for 2012, the League for the Protection of Nature recalls that public expenditure will be reduced by 7460 million euros, which is equivalent to 4,4% of GDP, «exceeding by almost 3000 million the forecast in the memo from troika of the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission”.
On the other hand, revenue, “which translates into a generalized increase in taxes, is expected to increase by 2890 million euros, almost double the amount foreseen in the memorandum of the troika”.
"This budget comes at a time of uncertainty with the purpose of balancing public accounts, seeking to recover the confidence of the markets to attract investment to Portugal, in which it is stated that austerity is the only path", adds the LPN, to underline soon then that «austerity at the social level is disturbing and dramatic, but its application to Nature means, in practice, the opening to its destruction».
“The policies proposed in the State Budget for 2012 risk the potentially irreversible destruction of values such as biodiversity and natural heritage such as rivers and soils. There is no long-term economy if we destroy the economy's substratum, which is Nature», concludes the environmental association.
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