Limites e possibilidades do sistema de pagamento por serviços ambientais como instrumento de promoção da sustentabilidade socioambiental no Brasil

Abstract

Brazilian environmental policy, as a law and public policy, provides the State a framework of instruments to guide the activities and practices of individuals and the society, guiding them to the imperatives of sustainability. Besides the repressive ways, there are promotional rules, which aim to encourage, through positive sanctions, practices that are beneficial to the environment and to sustainability; they are the economic instruments of environmental policy. This dissertation addresses a specific instrument that has been the subject of both critiques and approvals, the so-called "Payments for Environmental Services", since the following problem: it can be said that the systems of Payment for Environmental Services are only market mechanisms to facilitate the compliance of environmental laws or, if structured as programs derived from public policies, also represent a state instrument to effectively promote social and environmental sustainability? The main objective of the research is to investigate the limits and possibilities of this system (PSA) as a legal-economic tool to promote social and environmental sustainability in Brazil. The specific objectives are, firstly, analyze the formation of the idea and the juridical-institutional and economic-ecological implications of sustainability, as well as the promotional function of law in this context, with emphasis on the economic instruments of environmental policy in Brazil. Second, it aims to address the ecosystem services and the fundamentals of the Institute for Payment for Environmental Services, characterizing it and pointing out criticisms and limitations. Finally, we intend to investigate concrete experiences and future possibilities of structuring, in Brazil, public policies and programs of PES and derivatives, considering equity criteria that link social and cultural objectives to environmental ones. As for the method, the approach of the problem is carried out from a systemic-complex perspective, in view of a critical synthesis between holism and reductionism. It seeks a contextual and non-reductionist observation of the reality studied, as well as a panorama of overcoming the "communicative improbabilities" between the systems, especially the Economy and Law, based on principles and concepts such as the promotional function of law and social and environmental sustainability. The procedure adopted was the monographic method, with bibliographical and documentary research. As a result, it is indicated that the defense of some versions of Payment for Environmental Services, structured as public policy with social and environmental objectives, positively represent a state mechanism to promote social and environmental sustainability, provided that some equity requirements are met.