O ICMS-Ecológico e as Unidades de Conservação no Estado do Rio de Janeiro

“ICMS-Ecológico” is an economic instrument adopted in Brazil that encourages the adoption of environmental actions at the municipal level and has been used as an innovative tool, in support of public policies for biodiversity conservation. It establishes environmental criteria as conditions for channeling funds raised with added-value taxes to municipalities, rewarding environmentally desirable performances and encouraging the implementation of actions for this purpose. In the state of Rio de Janeiro, the “ICMS-E” was legally established in 2007, and several criteria have been set for the transfer of funds, including the existence of protected areas in municipal territory. Having this context as inspiration, the purpose of this article is to interpret the role of the “ICMS-Ecológico” as a mechanism of economic incentive for environmental conservation and its implications in the creation and management of protected areas in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Therefore, the methodology involved a literature review about the “ICMS-E” as an economic instrument in the Brazilian environmental policy, the construction of a database about the protected areas creation process in the state of Rio de Janeiro, in addition to holding interviews with institutional actors linked to the process of creation and implementation of this policy in the state. The research results show that the “ICMS-E” has promoted important advances regarding the creation and expansion of protected areas in this state, but there are still many difficulties to be overcome so that we can ensure effective management of these protected areas.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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