According to an investigation by the Estadão newspaper, superintendent Rodrigo Santos Alves, appointed by the current Brazilian Minister of the Environment, Ricardo Salles, to command Ibama in Bahia, was responsible for reversing the 7.5 million reais fine (1, 19 million euros) applied by the agency’s own technicians against the hotel and for annulling the decision that paralyzed the work.
At issue is the construction of a wall on the sand near the hotel, to contain the erosion process. However, environmental experts maintain that this type of structure, which is buried in the sand, compromises the breeding of sea turtles in the area, which tend to move to the region to spawn.
The resort is located on the same beach as Projeto Tamar, a program for the protection of marine animals of the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio), which, like Ibama, is linked to the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment.
Last July, after an on-site inspection, technicians from Ibama, the government agency responsible for the country’s environmental protection policies, assessed the Tivoli Ecoresort and ordered the embargo of “any and all activities related to the construction of a sand strip at Praia do enterprise ”.
The Union Patrimony Secretariat (SPU), an organ linked to the Ministry of Planning, had also already embarked on the work for the same reason, according to Estadão.
However, last September, Rodrigo Santos Alves decided to reverse the previous positioning of the body he leads, under the argument that the hotel already has an environmental license given by the municipality of Mata de São João.
“The licensor must balance the complex and often conflicting values between the environmental impact and the importance of the activity or enterprise, always aiming to promote a ‘productive and pleasant harmony between human beings and their environment'”, justified the superintendent in his decision , cited by the Brazilian newspaper.
Also according to Santos Alves, who is a partner in a real estate company that operates in the offer of luxury properties on the coast of Bahia, “the low environmental impact of the project” and the “socio-economic importance of the project” were taken into account, maintaining that it is not appropriate Ibama “the role of corregidor in the municipal process” and its local licenses.
In a statement, the hotel group defended that the objective of the work is to contain the advance of the sea on the structure of the hotel, adding that interventions of the same type have already occurred in the region and that the work in question takes place within the area of the property.
The Tivoli chain is part of the Hotelier Minor Hotels Group and currently operates 13 properties in Portugal, Brazil and Qatar.
In September, Minister Ricardo Salles, whose management is severely criticized by environmentalists, caused controversy in the country by excluding mangroves and vegetation from part of the country’s beaches from the list of environmental protection areas.
Environmentalists assessed that the conservation rules eliminated by Salles meet requests from the real estate sector, and from the hotel and agribusiness industry, interested in exploring areas whose occupation was prohibited.
Last year, another Portuguese hotel group, Vila Galé, caused controversy when it intended to build a ‘resort’ on an indigenous reservation, also in the Brazilian state of Bahia.
However, after several criticisms and political and social pressures, the Vila Galé group decided to abandon the project.
–
