O valor, a prática e a lei : o pagamento por serviços ambientais e sua previsão legal.

Abstract

This research verifies how the Payment for Environmental Services (PES), as an incentive instrument, can contribute to the guarantee of the constitutional right to the ecologically balanced environment when established by law. This right is inherent to the individual and has a diffuse character, appertaining to the whole collectivity, as well as the other rights established by the Brazilian Federal Constitution – CF and it is the object of study of Environmental Law, as a line of Law, essential to support this study. The theory that underlies the PES as an incentive instrument is Ecological Economy, which has its foundations in the studies of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, maintaining that natural resources are finite and scarce and that the environment is not only raw material for the production of consumer goods, but also the home of all living beings. This view is a counterpoint to the Environmental Economics, the traditional view of development, in which the environment must see to growth and has its function only to provide raw material for human production and consumption, and should not be limiting growth. Considering the PES as a tool of encouragement and within the conception of the Ecological Economy, this research analyzed PES projects and programs developed at state level in Brazil regulated by legal norms, checking their qualities and their obstacles. Finally, we investigated the results of the projects instituted by law and their importance in the regional scenario where they are carried out, as well as if the existence of the legal norm influenced in their realization, in order to understand the effectiveness that the law can bring to the concretization of the fundamental right to the ecologically balanced environment, guaranteed by the Brazilian Federal Constitution – CF. Therefore, it was verified that the most of the legislation analyzed present only the prospective payments and / or tax incentive, leaving to be desired in other actions that could contemplate the economic, social and environmental objectives of the PES. On the other hand, they compromise the government with the obligation to allocate resources to carry out PSE projects at the state level, extending to the municipal scale through association in some cases. This can be observed with the Waters Protector Project, from Vera Cruz, Rio Grande do Sul – RS, which started with the partnership among company, public agency and university, and today it has consolidated as a public policy.. In conclusion, it was found that the union of efforts between the government - instituting laws, allocating resources and carrying out actions of education and environmental awareness; of private organization, cooperate in the execution of the actions and providing resources when the State does not stipulate the necessary values for the realization of projects; and community mobilization, to firm up the activities and the comprehension of the finite of nature; can be able to stimulate in society the thought that the environment is the place where one lives and coexists, then essential for the perpetuation or continuation of human life on the planet.