Trouble began late last year when Público reported that government agencies charged with environmental protection – particularly the ICNF (Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests) – feared their ‘powers’ were going to be watered down so that government decisions on issues that were running into obstacles and civic opposition – particularly mining/photovoltaic projects – could move forwards ‘much more easily’.
Fast forward to this month, and Minister of Environment Maria da Graça Carvalho gave the pledge that the government is “not going to break up the nature conservation institute (ICNF)”, but it is “necessary to discuss how to resolve some problems that have been detected, and that even greater interconnection with the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) will be needed”.
These comments already ‘did not sit well’ with ICNF staff and technicians – and then came the absolute coup de grâce from the Minister of Agriculture. In a video that he sent the institute ‘thanking them for their work’, he suggested that they think more proactively; put themselves in the place of ‘the other’ (in this case, investors behind various projects) as it is the government’s ‘mission to perform in relation to the other’ (meaning, the government, in José Manuel Fernandes’ eyes, wants to help investors realise projects, if necessary even at the expense of environmental concerns).
This video, freely available online, is what opened the floodwaters of outrage.
Público spoke to members of ICNF who gave their stunned interpretations: the government is irritated by the number of ‘negative opinions’ that the institute has been giving certain projects and wants to see the ICNF ‘ponder more’ on the consequences of following environmental restrictions so diligently.
“Sometimes the answer is: this is a project that cannot be done because the legislation doesn’t permit it,” Fernandes admits clearly in the video, which he sent the ICNF due to his inability to physically attend a meeting. “And the question then to ask is, ‘should the law permit it?’ And if the law should allow it, what we should do is alter this law. Sometimes this requires just a simple ‘ordinance’; other times it is a ‘decree-law’. But other times it could be a directive, or a regulation (…) What we ask is good sense,” he continues, “because this is the best way for us to achieve the objectives proposed”.
All this played out as the country weathered a weekend battering from Storm Ingrid – but emotions were running so high that even PS Socialists came out on a supremely wet Saturday to call for an urgent hearing of Minister Fernandes in parliament – accusing the government of putting ‘illegitimate pressure’ on entities responsible for environmental impact assessments.
In a statement, the Socialist parliamentary group explained that just this week, two ministers have now publicly demanded that environmental authorities “not comply with the law”. They said they were referring also to statements made by the Minister of Economy and Territorial Cohesion, Manuel Castro Almeida, who accused environmental authorities of being responsible for some of the delays in receiving European funding.
The Socialists’ viewpoint – in line with that of ICNF officials – is that Minister Fernandes wants the institute to “approve what the law does not allow”. He conveyed that, in certain situations, the executive “will change the law to approve specific projects that do not comply with current national and international legal parameters for the defence of biodiversity and nature conservation. (This is a) very dangerous denialist view (…) regarding the need to preserve nature and international agreements undertaken by the country”.
As all this played out, Minister Fernandes further muddied the waters by calling the ICNF officials who had ‘leaked’ his video “liars, cowards and radicals”.
ZERO – one of Portugal’s leading environmental associations – rode to the ICNF’s defence, denouncing the minister’s video statements (and his subsequent insults) as “an unprecedented attack on the dignity of nature conservation institutions”.
For ZERO, Fernandes’ message called into question “the rule of law” and violated the government’s Code of Conduct, which obliges that MPs maintain “high ethical standards”.
And on Monday, many more environmental associations had come out in fury. “The ICNF does not exist to legitimise political decisions taken previously, nor to accommodate short-term sectorial interests,” said a statement signed by the C7 coalition which, besides ZERO, includes WWF-Portugal, FAPAS, GEOTA, the League for the Protection of Nature, Quercus and SPEA, the Portuguese Society for the Study of Birds.
“The ICNF exists to comply with and enforce the law, assess environmental impacts based on the best available scientific knowledge, and safeguard essential public goods, such as biodiversity and other natural values, which belong to society as a whole,” the statement continued. If these values are compromised, “the well-being, safety, and future of the next generations” will be affected.
And this is the thing/the crux of the matter: almost every week the country hears of a new ‘mega-project’, or mining plan, that promises ‘big’ in terms of European ‘clean energy strategies’ but also compromises the lives and livelihoods of Portuguese communities who feel they have little say or representation.
If one of the few ‘buffers’ between commercial interests and the government’s ‘mission’ to further them has its influence reduced, where, communities ask, are their interests being taken on board?
Quercus stresses that the minister’s video was not a simple ‘lapse of language’: it was an “alarming political signal that compromises the technical autonomy of an entity that is already asphyxiated by a lack of human and logistical resources”.
WWF-Portugal has cut to the chase and said it is time to pin Prime Minister Luís Montenegro down on the government’s real intentions for the ICNF – as well as to hear his position on Minister Fernandes’ worrying statements.
Another aspect this saga throws up is the tone-deafness of an administration that thinks it can ‘just change the law’. The AD (PSD/CDS-PP) government has no majority. A decree-law has to be approved, undergo parliamentary scrutiny and then be promulgated by the country’s (new) president – neither hurdle being ‘guaranteed’ – and, after this latest debacle, very unlikely to be.
