Municipalização do licenciamento ambiental : uma síntese das pluralidades de experiências nos estados de Minas Gerais e Piauí.

Environmental licensing has been criticized, as having cumbersome procedures, lack of supervision, low public participation, among others. The decentralization of environmental licensing down to the municipal level is considered one of the potential solutions to strengthen this instrument, aiming to better control impacts on the local environment. However, several authors argue that decentralization is utopian because of the low institutional capacity of local government agencies. The Brazilian municipal public administration evolved in recent years. Likewise, decentralization processes have evolved significantly and distinctly in each Brazilian state, following the local realities and needs. This study aimed to evaluate new decentralization experiences of environmental licensing in different contexts, assessing decentralization in the states of Piaui and Minas Gerais, through the analysis of their capitals respectively Teresina and Belo Horizonte, and two towns, Agua Branca and Betim, all with local municipal environmental licensing. It was used a descriptive and qualitative research approach based on multi-case studies. For data collection were used literature search, document review and structured interviews. Interviews were conducted through questionnaires with representatives of local environmental agencies in each municipality. The decentralization occurred at different times in the two states. Differences were observed between the secretariats. The experiences differ in the capital and within context, as the number of employees and licensable types, but some negative points such as lack of physical structure and not skilled technicians was appointed especially in Piaui, showing a difference in the process of decentralization in the states. Overall, the results support the obstacles identified in previous studies and show that in the interior, especially the northeast, the obstacles might be even greater.