Ambiente institucional da compensação ambiental de que trata o Artigo 36 da Lei Federal 9.985/2000: da necessidade de governança regulatória

Abstract

This research focused upon the institutional environment of the implementation of the environmental compensation process within federal licensing procedures, in the period from 2000 to 2008. The instrument was established by Article 36 of Federal Law 9985/2000, to compensate immitigable impacts of development projects, providing a means to indemnify society for these damages. Enterprises environmental compensations are applied toward priority actions to benefit integrally protected areas, constituting a significant non-budgetary source for the economic sustainability of the National System of Conservation Units. The theoretical principles underlying the New Institutional Economics permit an examination of the unstable institutional and administrative structures of the instrument s management. Significant conditions of uncertainty for the entrepreneur and loss of resources destined for protected areas indicate the limited governance prevalent in these arrangements. In this sense, the hypothesis that governance schema are an essential component in the regulatory arrangements of environmental polices was taken as an analytical basis for this investigation. The analysis of the mechanism s institutional gaps, and consequent transactions costs, consisted in a revision of its legal and normative bases, and of the absence of transparency and social control over its implementation. Within this delimitation, the study explored the dimensions of the specific governance challenges in environmental compensation instruments, in which, in large measure, choices and decisions must be made under conditions of uncertainty.