Grow and mature

In Constituent of 1988, a major innovation was the political and institutional status provided to the subject of the environment, making it the object of unprecedented chapter in the Constitution and creating tools to consolidate it in the daily lives of public policies.

In the Congress, the first sign of new times was the creation in the Chamber of Deputies, after the Constituent, the Committee for Consumer Protection, Environment and Minorities.

In 2004, with the growth of the environmental agenda has been broken, giving rise to the Commission on Environment and Maintainable Development. In the Senate, for a long time the environmental issues were addressed in the Commission on Social Affairs, to the creation of the current Commission for the Environment, Consumer Protection and Surveillance and Control. The committees of both houses were known by the leadership of parliamentary environmentalists and strong participation of entities of social movements.

As the country's environmental policy was expanded, taking shape and showing their real address the production process and broad economic and social dynamics, and other sectors of Congress, such as members of the bench for owners of large land, began to participate in upgrading the commissions in general to challenge environmental laws.

This participation is legitimate and desirable. Gives the measure of real conflicts existing in society and places them in open discussion. It is a necessary step to get summaries and confluences, as befits a democracy.

Moreover, neither for themselves environmentalists would be desirable that the space theme of the Congress from turning into ghettos and isolated on the defensive.

But is not there something that will.

It seems to go in the opposite direction of the virtuous scenario of public space and also the lessons of the global crisis, recommending integrated efforts, increasingly facing changing patterns of production and patterns of political, because the old ways do not give account of the requirements of this.

Policy, is expected to grow, mature and understand that nothing can be as before. Or better, they can, but the high cost to society.

What happens in the committees of the environment is like walking backwards. The strategy, it seems, is to "occupy the space of the enemy." In the speech of many of its new members, the environment "hinders the development."

The immediate goal is clear: changes in the Forest Code to expand the area likely to reduce deforestation in the Amazon and riparian forests in all biomes.

Thus it is difficult to move.