A tributação ambiental e o orçamento público: o ingresso financeiro de visitação do Parque Natural Marinho do Recife de Fora em Porto Seguro / BA

Abstract

The environmental degradation resulting from human activities, especially since the Industrial Revolution, has been motivating scientific studies that point to the need to adopt mitigating measures to keep environmental impacts within the limits of ecosystem resilience. Environmental taxation, based on the polluter pays principle, has been adopted by certain national states, especially within the European Union, as one of these mitigating measures of environmental impacts, aimed at dissuading the producer from undertaking, or motivating him to reduce, an activity with the potential to cause environmental damage, and redistribute the costs of damage to those who cause it, thus avoiding the unfair imposition of these costs on society. In this context, this research analyzed the predominant environmental policy instruments in Brazil and the foundations of environmental taxation, in its inducing action possibility, with the primary function of encouraging a change in behavior by polluting agents. A case study analyzed the visitation fee for the Recife de Fora Marine Municipal Natural Park (RFMMNP), located on the coast of the municipality of Porto Seguro/BA, verifying its legal nature and the application of the revenue collected, comparing it with other fees of an environmental nature instituted in Brazil. The results demonstrated the need for the implementation of a broad environmental taxation policy in Brazil, based on the polluter-pays principle, as an alternative, in combination with existing policies, for the mitigation of its serious environmental crisis, since it would induce potential polluters to adopt measures aimed at reducing negative environmental externalities and/or promoting positive environmental externalities, in addition to collecting financial resources for exclusive application in the defense of the environment. It was also shown that the so-called environmental fees currently existing in Brazil, levied on certain sectors of the economy, cannot be considered an environmental tax in the strict sense and are still insufficient to mitigate the crisis, although they partially contribute to the maintenance of an ecologically balanced environment. Finally, the research showed that the RFMMNP's visitation fee does not constitute a tax and does not have the power of an environmental policy but was instituted only as a partial source of economic sustainability of the RFMMNP conservation unit. It was not possible to verify if the resources collected from the visitation fee are being applied exclusively in environmental protection of the conservation unit itself or in other environmental policies, because the accounting process of this resource does not allow a clear identification of its origin. The study points to the need of a tax for environmental purposes on the tourist activities developed in the Recife de Fora, to inhibit the unbridled increase of these activities and to collect financial resources to be applied exclusively in environmental public policies at the municipal level