Percepções no processo de licenciamento de empreedimentos em energia eólica e conflitos socioambientais no município de São Miguel do Gostoso

Abstract

From the economic point of view, the exploitation of the wind potential brought to the state of Rio Grande do Norte large investments of national and foreign capital, becoming a priority political interest and representing an alternative to the dependence of the hydroelectric regime that prevails in the country. This energy matrix also has an environmental bias, insofar as its impacts on the physical environment are comparatively smaller. In addition, it is considered by international climate agreements as the main sustainable alternative for controlling the greenhouse effect by reducing the burning of fossil fuels. However, the deployment of wind towers has generated serious social issues, identified in studies around the world, especially in what concerns the appropriation of territories, landscape impacts, noise, among others. It is a question of environmental injustice, where the harmful effects of the activity fall precisely on the most helpless. In particular, its effects can also be felt in the municipality of São Miguel do Gostoso, located on the northern coast of the RN. In the community of Morro dos Martins, where the research was developed, this problem was repeated, even though in 2011 the project was subject to an environmental licensing procedure provided according to the brazilian law. The problem then arises in verifying if licensing reaches its objectives with respect to the social side of sustainability and also if it has a democratic character. For that, a participant observation was carried out in the place, as well as the process in question was analyzed and direct data obtained from the Municipality. During the observation, 20 interviews were conducted with residents who sold their land to the company that built the park. Among the results, it was observed that the population sold their lands to the company, harassed by the money and abandoned by the institutions, and now they have no more how to produce, as well as they made misuse of the product of the sale of their goods. In addition, residents complain about the environmental agency's inertia in defending its interests, and the regulations do not grant any decision power to those directly affected by the impacts of the works, which does not translate into a truly democratic tool. It is concluded that only after the adoption of methods that contemplate the participation of the population in an effective way, taking into account the principles of environmental justice, as well as the creation of an association that represents popular interests and defends them in the face of new arbitrariness.