Abstract

LOURENCO, Andréia Vigolo  and  ASMUS, Milton Lafourcade. Port Environmental Management: weaknesses, challenges and opportunities in the Port of Rio Grande, RS, Brazil. RGCI [online]. 2015, vol.15, n.2, pp.223-235. ISSN 1646-8872.  https://doi.org/10.5894/rgci498.

Lately established when compared to the international scenario, the port environmental management in Brazil is mainly based on the processes of environmental licensing. The conditions of these license processes reflect how management is not related to environmental planning, but instead in mitigating existing impacts. In addition, environmental management occurs in a fragmented way and not in phase with port development, arising the need of national policies that allow connections between port processes with environmental sustainability. This article describes the results of a detailed diagnosis of the processes of environmental planning and management of the Port of Rio Grande, RS - Brazil, as a representative of the Brazilian port subsector, whose model of environmental management is still fragmented and barely implemented. The work also reflects the experience of the first author who acted for some time under the Division of Environment, Health and Safety in the Port of Rio Grande (DMASS). It was developed based on a qualitative research methodology applied to document analyses and semi-structured interviews with key actors involved in the actions of port planning and management environmental at national and local levels. The institutional experiences at DMASS was shown as a positive methodological tool for conducting the qualitative assessment of the critical processes related to port environmental management. The interviews, in turn, permitted a better basis on issues of public policy and environmental governance within the port environment, becoming a key part to corroborate the information gathered during the research. Finally, based on this analysis, the paper describes the weaknesses, challenges and potential of port environmental management at the Port of Rio Grande, which can allow support to decision-making at the local level and, at the same time, to contribute to the improvements of environmental management processes in other Brazilian ports.

Keywords : coastal management; qualitative analysis; environmental management; coastal zone policies.

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