Green Cities Program Advance in Sao Paulo, Brazil
by Paula Alvarado, Buenos Aires on 07.24.07
The Sao Paulo State government launched last April a plan with 21 “strategic environmental projects” to shift that province, which is Brazil’s economic epicenter, in a greener direction. Good news is that recently one of those projects is coming to reality: the Green Cities plan, which 393 out of 645 of the province municipalities have signed to, The Temas Blog informed. By this plan, municipalities have to commit to adopt 10 measures in order to control and reduce environmental issues. “With this project, the environmental cause is now part of the State’s political agenda”, said Jose Serra, Sao Paulo’s governor (picture). The 10 steps program of the Green Cities plan includes:
Via The Temas Blog
-The collection and treatment of all household sewage by 2010,
-Adoption of a solid waste management policy that promotes recycling,
-The Participation in the recovery of river and lakes vegetation program,
-Implementation of a tree planting program and maintain municipal green areas,
-The establishment of an environmental education program in municipal schools,
-Definition of a program to reduce the use of wood from the Amazon in civil construction and the leasing of construction permits that incorporate sustainable criteria,
-The implementation of a program to reduce water waste,
-A commitment to help government to control greenhouse-gases emissions,
-The conformation of an entity within the municipal government responsible for the protection of the environment (cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants), and
-Constitution of a Municipal Environment Council to ensure the participation of the scientific community, civil society and NGOs with a local focus.
Sao Paulo’s “21 Strategic Environmental Projects” are:
-The investigation of how the State might look in 2020,
-A set of regulations to charge large water consumers (whose revenues will be used for water management programs),
-A zero tolerance policy for deforestation with restriction of licensing for some environmental projects and stronger mitigation measures along with punishing for environmental crimes,
-An eco-tourism stimulation plan to get citizens more involved in environmental issues,
-Sewage treatment programs in which municipalities with insufficient treated sewage will be forced to adjust their conduct to standards,
-An agreement with sugar-cane-for-ethanol farmers in order to ensure their good practices (since not all the practices involved are green),
-A system to protect endangered wildlife,
-A project to provide the State’s conservation units with management plans,
-The creation of an environmental-projects portfolio for private investors to take part in,
-A reformation of the environmental licensing of the State with a modernized agency that would have control over all state-level issues,
-Environmental management and control for the northern coastline of the State (which has rapidly growing population),
-A plan to reduce the amount of trash and pollutants with aim to eliminate open-air dumps, reduce the amount of household waste and stimulate recycling,
-The protection of key water reservoirs,
-A project to recover the State’s rivers and lakes’ vegetation (mata ciliar),
-The Green Cities program (above), to give cities resources and control them in the implementation of green measures with a “Green City” certification (which will give them priority in State assistance and funds for environmental projects),
-Community projects to make people take action with awareness campaigns,
-The promotion of scientific research about environmental issues,
-A reform in the State administration itself to make it more efficient,
-The plan “Sao Paulo Breathes”, which will aim to control and reduce pollution standards,
-A plan called “Sao Paulo Friend of the Amazon”, which will promote the use of only certified wood products by the State, and
-A protection plan for Serra do Mar, which is a mountain range that stands by Sao Paulo’s coastline and is threatened by new (illegal) inhabitants.
Check our other Brazil entries here.
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::Sao Paulo’s Green Cities Program Launched ::Serra’s 21 Strategic Environmental Projects for São Paulo
While I guess I don't mind that you combined & cut & pasted two of my blog's entries to make one article and promote Treehugger's other Brazilian entries (especially since Treehugger has never reciprocated my link to them, and ignored my past request to add my blog to their blogroll!), I'd at least like the courtesy of having links included in your article to BOTH of my entries you copied from instead of just the oldest one (the 21 program entry I did last April). Here is the link for the recent Green Cities Program entry. Thanks.
Keith R
You should check better before mentioning I did not link to both your entries, since they are in the same line but they are two different links (you can check that right now, and I did not have to correct anything).
I did not cut and paste your articles, but did take the information contained in this article and summarized it in a way I though it fit better here. It is not I took an opinion article, it is a program by the government and they are official communications. Plus, I quoted you and your blog is mentioned three times in the article when I could have searched for the communicate in the government site and not give you credit at all, so I don't think this is inappropriate in any way.
If you don't want me to check your blogs for stories and to give you free-publicity in a site that surely gets plenty more visits than yours, no problem, just let me know. Just remember it is absolutely not my fault that you don't have your site listed here.
Discupla-me, por favor, I spoke too soon & in irritation, something I usually avoid.
You're right about the two links being there -- since they were on a same line of text in my browser when I accessed the article, when I ran my cursor over that line, only one link was shown. I apologize.
Just so you understand, my irritation resulted from a past TH article (not yours I hasten to add) that borrowed quite a bit from one of my blog entries, and while including a link to the original, did so in such a way it was not easy to find, so in the end TH got lots of views on the subject but I received few. As you might guess, I was not happy...But again, it was not fair to be irritated with you for something done in the past by one of your colleagues.
I didn't say or mean to imply that you personally had anything to do with the fact that Treehugger has not responded to a past request to link to Temas. Sorry if I left that impression. I don't know whose job that actually is and why they don't list Temas -- I can't if they didn't get back to me. But you're right, I shouldn't have raised it in relation to this article.