The beach is, in Brazil, an extension of the living room, the main square of the town, the agora of the city, a sacred institution. The idea that, on the beach, rich and poor can share the same piece of sand is deeply rooted in the collective imagination of an extremely unequal country. Therefore, hearing “privatisation” and “beaches” in the same phrase has put half of Brazil on a war footing. The controversy has erupted over a parliamentary proposal that opens the door for land on the coastline that now belongs to the State to pass into private hands. The Government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is against the initiative, and it is difficult for it to move forward, but the debate is already in the streets and has even affected the footballer Neymar, accused of supporting the legal change because he has interests in a huge complex of resorts on the paradisiacal northeast coast of the country.
The constitutional reform project – one of many being processed by Congress – is not about buying or selling beaches as if they were any piece of land, but rather about facilitating the economic exploitation of a strip of coast located right next to the beaches, where there are usually mangroves. , dunes, sandbank vegetation or cliffs. Those who build on these lands will never be able to own the beach (the law prohibits this), but they could prevent certain bathers from accessing the sand, which in practice is equivalent to appropriating it.
Defenders of the idea say it will provide legal security to traditional communities that historically occupied these areas irregularly and will stimulate tourism development. Opponents warn of the privatization of public space and incalculable environmental damage. According to Government estimates, Brazil has 48,000 linear kilometers of “marine land”, which borders beaches, rivers and lakes and is in the spotlight.
The parliamentary initiative was approved in the Chamber of Deputies in 2022, during the Government of Jair Bolsonaro, and now, with an even more conservative Congress configuration, it is being debated by the Senate. Even so, moving forward is not an easy task: the Constitution would have to be modified, and to do so a broad consensus is needed, which with the media dust of recent days will be more difficult to achieve. The rapporteur in the Senate of the proposal that could privatize Brazil’s beaches is Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the former president, who considers that criticism of the project is a “left-wing narrative.”
“How many families depend on the right to be on the beach to earn a living, to set up a hut, to sell a drink, a snack, whatever? With the approval of a proposal like that, in the privatized areas that will not be possible. Access to the beaches itself will be prohibited,” Senator Humberto Costa, of Lula’s Workers’ Party, warned in the debates. Like other senators, he criticized Neymar for defending the idea, pointing out that “private interests” are at stake.
The Brazilian forward entered into controversy because he recently announced a collaboration with a real estate company that intends to build 28 luxury properties on a 100-kilometer coastal strip between the states of Pernambuco and Alagoas, one of the best preserved areas of the Brazilian coast, with plains of coconut palms and turquoise water. The company calls it the Brazilian Caribbean Route. “We are going to transform the northeast coast and bring a lot of social and economic development to the region,” the player announced on his social networks. Criticism rained down on him and he got into an argument with the actress and environmental activist Luana Piovani that quickly went viral, along with the slogan “Less Ney, more Sea.”
The debate went beyond traditional environmental circles. On Monday, the footballer was received with protest banners at a charity auction that he organized in São Paulo. Both Neymar and the company assure that they have nothing to do with the proposal that the parliamentarians are processing.
Critics of the measure also remember that preserving coastal lands is essential at a time when erosion and rising sea levels are accelerating due to global warming. The debate also comes a few weeks after the shock caused by the floods in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, which left 172 dead and more than half a million displaced. “It causes more perplexity to see the progress of an initiative of this type at a time of environmental calamity,” lamented progressive senator Leila Barros in the parliamentary debates these days.
In line with the proposal sponsored by his son Flávio, Bolsonaro, when he was president, also made an effort to facilitate construction on the coast. His obsession was to make environmental legislation more flexible to build a “Brazilian Cancun” in the Tamoios reserve, a natural paradise with thirty islands south of Rio de Janeiro. The project also generated a resounding controversy and ultimately did not go ahead.
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