Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Brazil
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

An Overview of Environmental Policies in Latin America<sup>1

by</sup>

Prof. Dr. Fernando Dias de Avila-Pires

Summary

The expression Latin America refers to the Iberian conquerors, the Spanish and Portuguese navigators that arrived in the American continent at the end of the XVth century, during the European Renaissance. Mexico, Middle and South America forms a conglomerate of independent nations, plus a few Dutch and British islands, a small French territory, the French Guyana, and a large number of surviving pre-Columbian native tribes or nations of distinct ethnic origins. Trinidad-Tobago, Guyana and Suriname became independent from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in the 1960’. This paper traces the history of early environmental technologies and policies to the present day. It describes the evolution of the colonial policies governing the exploitation of natural riches to the current national policies concerned with environmental impacts and sustainable development. Key words: environmental policies; Latin America; impact assessment; natural resources.

Introduction

Mexico, Middle and South America forms a conglomerate of independent nations, plus a few Dutch and British islands, a small French territory - the French Guyana, and a large number of surviving pre-Columbian native tribes or nations of distinct ethnic origins. Trinidad-Tobago, Guyana and Suriname became independent from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in the 1960’. No visible trace of early Viking sailors survived. Besides, each war in Europe forced a wave of migrants to search for asylum in the New World. Italians, Polish, Hungarians, Russians, Germans, Japanese, Syrians, Lebanese, among others formed in some cases tightly closed enclaves, speaking long forgotten dialects that have vanished in their native countries, but more often mingling with the host populations, and retaining but just a few folkloric traces of their original cultures.

The expression Latin America refers to the Iberian conquerors, the Spanish and Portuguese navigators that arrived in the American continent at the end of the XVth century and in the early XVIth’s. Ensuing territorial disputes over known and unknown lands of the New World were tentatively settled by Papal bullas and treaties between the kingdoms of Castella and Portugal. From 1581 to 1640 Portugal was under Spanish rule, which was somehow beneficial to Brazilian territorial expansion, beyond the limits imposed by former treaties. The final treaty that ended war in the Iberian peninsula was signed in 1668. All along the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, astronomers, naturalists and soldiers made extensive expeditions to demarcate land and river frontiers. Attempts by French and Dutch expeditions to establish permanent colonies in Brazil were short lived. With the cessation of hostilities involving Spain, The Netherlands, England and France, compensations were paid and the three Guyanas established. Towards the northern latitudes, Spain colonized Middle and North America, with the exception of small enclaves as Dutch Manhattan – later sold to England - and the French Louisiana.

Spanish became the common language of the majority of Latin American countries, while Portuguese is spoken in Brazil.

Until the XIXth century, the environmental policies in Latin America were those imposed by the European colonizers, and obviously directed towards the exploitation of natural resources, vegetal, animal, and mineral. Natives were also considered a natural resource, and duly enslaved, at a time when the Catholic church condoned and justified slavery. The earliest regulatory initiatives were aimed at the restriction of trading rights or at the limitation of property and use. Thus, the Portuguese expression madeira de lei was adopted to designate those noble species of trees which belonged legally to the king, to be used in naval construction or in fine wood craftsmanship. For example, it has been recently estimated that from the XVIth to the XIXth century, about 470 thousand logs of Cesalpinia echinata, the Brazil wood, were cut and exported to Portugal for its precious red die. There followed the introduction of species from Europe, and European colonies in Asia and Africa. Botanical gardens were established in the New World to cultivate and spread the costly spices from the Orient and a variety of introduced cultivated plants and domestic animals. New diseases and parasites arrived with men and animals, as it was well documented by the early travellers and chroniclers. From the Americas, plants, animals and materia medica were sent to Europe, causing profound changes in the Old World nutritional habits (Avila-Pires, 2003). Gold, silver and gems would be a later development in the process of territorial occupation of Brazil. On the Pacific side, Spanish conquerors found a number of developed native societies already submitted and ruled by the Inca Empire, with large riches in precious metals ready to be plundered. To the north of the Equator, the Aztec and Mayan civilizations suffered the same fate.

[...]

1 International Training Programme in Environmental Impact Assessment and Information and Communication Technologies Applications (EIA-ICT) Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 1 June-31 July 2005