The process of developing ecological economic zoning of Rio de Janeiro: challenges and perspectives

Abstract

The National Environmental Policy (Federal Law nº 6.938/1981) established, among its implementation instruments, the Environmental Zoning and was regulated by Decree nº 4.297/2002 under the name of Economic Ecological Zoning (ZEE). This Decree also established criteria for its elaboration, giving competence to federative entities and guiding the states to produce their instruments. Federal Law nº 12.651/2012 (Forestry Code) established a period of five years (art. 13, §2) for all states to prepare and approve their ZEEs. The elaboration of the Ecological Economic Zoning of the State of Rio de Janeiro (ZEE/RJ) began with the phase of legal instrumentalization, from the constitution of the legal basis (State Law No. 5.067/2007) that promotes the elaboration of the ZEE, creates its precepts, principles, objectives, general guidelines and methodology. Then, activities to identify demands, institutional articulation, resource mobilization and project consolidation were carried out. Subsequently, the diagnosis phase was carried out, which generated the analysis of socio-environmental qualification on a scale of 1:100,000. After the first two phases, the state of Rio de Janeiro started in 2014 the final phases of the ZEE, containing the prognosis, scenarios, proposed zones and guidelines, in addition to validation and support for implementation. This article aims to present the process of construction of the stages, procedures and discussions of the process of elaboration of the ZEE/RJ, identifying the challenges in its elaboration. The methodological approach was qualitative. The data collection consisted of bibliographical and documentary research, complemented by interviews with the ZEE/RJ coordinators. Among the main results are the systematization of the legal aspects and construction of the institutional arrangements of the ZEE/RJ, in addition to the identification of the stages of elaboration of the instrument and construction of its zones.