Comparative approach to the structure of national environmental systems in Colombia and Brazil

Abstract

The Stockholm Conference of 1972 and ECO-92 showed nature as an international relevant issue. Thus, Colombia and Brazil have outlined laws, which preceded or followed the political constitution to integrate principles and instruments of environmental protection. Their national environmental systems were structured in organisms and functions for the protection and management of natural resources. To understand the evolution of these situation without attempting to close the debate around this, there were identified the environmental policies, especially with regard to its highest law, followed by the description of the system to finally draw a synoptic framework, highlighting differences and similarities in these evolution. The development of these policies has in common the fact that the panorama of the environmental crisis put pressure on them in order to evolve. differing, among other things, because they have different administrative political systems. It concludes that the knowledge of how each of these systems is of utmost importance to first, provide the exchange of experiences between the two countries and to provide an assessment and propose measures seeking the protection of ecological goods essential for life.