Prevention of Extreme Risks in Slums and Peripheries (Article)

Prevention of Extreme Risks in Slums and Peripheries" is an article written by Vitor Martins and Sonia Fleury, originally published on the Outras Palavras information portal. The authors discuss environmental policies for the prevention of extreme events in slums and development, analyzing the development project and the neoliberal agenda.

Authors: Vitor Martins, sociologist and researcher at the Marielle Franco Favelas Dictionary; Sonia Fleury, coordinator of the Marielle Franco Favelas Dictionary.

About

In the last month, at least twenty cities have launched their Municipal Risk Reduction Plans (PMRR). In a cooperation between Fiocruz and the National Secretariat for Peripheries (SNP) - located in the Ministry of Cities and the project's funder - the work began in October of the previous year, when the ministry selected researchers, and has been publicized in recent weeks through public hearings for its launch. Among the chosen cities are: Angra dos Reis-RJ, Belém-PA, Candeias-BA, Colombo-PR, Contagem-MG, Florianópolis-SC, Ilhéus-BA, Manaus-AM, Itaquaquecetuba-SP, Jaboatão dos Guararapes-PE, João Monlevade-MG, Mauá-SP, Natal-RN, Niterói-RJ, Olinda-PE, Paranaguá-PR, Porto Alegre-RS, Santa Maria-RS, São José-SC, and Serra-ES.

With the hiring of technical teams from 17 universities, contracted by the ministry, the main objective of the plans is to propose interventions for the adaptation and prevention of risks from extreme events in peripheries and favelas. Through the production and delivery of both technical-scientific and community data - as the plans aim for researchers to collaborate with local populations in producing them - the SNP seeks to build relationships with municipal and state agencies, possibly guiding policies for climate emergencies, with a focus on the most socially and economically vulnerable localities and populations.

By placing favelas and peripheries at the center of municipal plans, this initiative stands out by recognizing the intimate relationship between disasters and social inequality, a prominent feature of the Brazilian reality. However, risk analysis in favelas and peripheries has already been addressed in other studies and municipal plans, given that risks are socio-cultural constructs that should not be naturalized. The uniqueness of this current proposal lies in its national scope, still impacted by the disaster in Rio Grande do Sul and with greater societal mobilization around environmental issues. The expected results from the plans will highlight structural and non-structural actions that need to be on the local and federal governments' agendas for implementation. It is in this context that we briefly discuss the agendas and development projects forming across Brazil, intending to highlight the limits of an environmental policy that does not align with the economic goals thus far established.

Taking the disaster in Rio Grande do Sul as an example, the floods in May in the state once again highlighted the climate and humanitarian emergency we are facing, and made evident that the human-nature relationship - more than an academic analysis category - is a central theme for discussing a less predatory development project, with social inclusion and in harmony with the environment.

The tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul exposed to Brazil and the world the destructive scale that extreme events will cause from now on, marking the beginning of a challenging moment regarding climate change and risk reduction policies. The torrential rains, which exceeded one thousand millimeters in about two weeks - the expected volume for at least six months - affected over 90% of the state's municipalities, impacting at least 2 million people and leaving over 500,000 displaced. Additionally, more than 180 people died during the tragedy, and entire cities were submerged, including densely populated neighborhoods in Porto Alegre and the metropolitan region.

Among landslides, flash floods, and river floods, much of the state’s infrastructure was damaged, compromising the state's economy. However, and perhaps most importantly, is the social crisis that ensued: the risk of market shortages, the shutdown of water pumping stations, power supply interruptions, and rising river levels caused chaos among the population. Added to this were looting and home invasions in evacuated neighborhoods, assaults and rapes reported in temporary shelters, difficulty in reuniting families, and identifying children and elderly people affected by the floods, as well as the spread of contagious diseases, such as leptospirosis.

It is important to note that, despite affecting the population in general, the consequences of these events strengthened inequality and increased the social divide between those impacted. Those who could afford it stocked up on food and goods to avoid shortages—accelerating the problem. The wealthier took refuge in coastal cities in a financial effort that most families were unable to afford. Others, lacking such opportunities, were able to rely on networks of family, friends, and coworkers, which provided them with a more comfortable stay during the crisis. Only those without the means to mobilize such resources—whose support networks were either weakened by the tragedy or nonexistent—were left to rely on public aid and volunteer solidarity.

Amid the chaos, a wave of solidarity emerged, formed by crowds across Brazil who, moved by images and stories being broadcast, quickly organized donation collection points, online fundraising campaigns, offered remote services, and even traveled to Rio Grande do Sul to join teams in temporary shelters and rescue operations. However, even goodwill and charity were not exempt from ideological battles aimed at promoting liberal values, which sought to appropriate the authentic feelings of the population to obscure and transfer the responsibility that should have been assumed by the State. This is not meant to undermine the effectiveness and power of those who showed solidarity and empathy for the tragedy, as, without them, the disaster would have been even more critical and turbulent. Rather, it aims to draw attention to the fact that even the most human actions captured in the crisis scenario were incorporated into the neoliberal agenda, which must be questioned.

Thus, it must be clear that the people of Rio Grande do Sul were not "all in the same boat" and would not emerge from the tragedy without public action. In a manner similar to what was seen during the coronavirus pandemic, the effects of the disaster were felt unequally. While some shared the same vulnerabilities and uncertainties, others merely used their emergency reserves. There were even those who, unaffected in any way, continued their lives as if the city they lived in were not undergoing a profound tragedy. They ignored the crisis just as they ignored calls for water rationing, enjoying the few sunny days in their private pools or in the clubs to which they belonged.

More than the effects of uncontrolled carbon emissions in the atmosphere, resulting from the imbalanced use of non-renewable energies, the causes of the tragedy seem to be tied to the very model of development adopted worldwide and uniquely reproduced in Global South countries. The growth of cities without urban planning that considers geological and environmental characteristics for land use, the destruction of local vegetation and forests, and the lack of preparedness to handle extreme events present structural problems that exacerbate the impacts of disasters on the population. The absence of housing and urbanization policies pushes the poorest populations into areas with less public investment, placing them in greater vulnerability, while deregulation favors the predatory occupation of the environment by business interests, to the detriment of a common project.

In the case of Rio Grande do Sul, the occupation of the so-called "flood plains" by industries and local groups demonstrates this scenario. Additionally, the advance of neoliberal policies, illustrated by the alteration of over 400 norms of the Environmental Code by Governor Leite in the name of the economy, business, and the market, reveals the intimate relationship between the conception of predatory development and the disaster. Besides distorting the State Environmental Code and sanctioning the construction of dams in preservation areas, the governor of Rio Grande do Sul ignored warnings from the Gaúcha Association for the Protection of the Natural Environment (Agapan). After the tragedy, the governor sought to excuse himself, saying that he did not take preventive measures because his priority was fiscal matters. Thus, the fallacy of the austerity ideology became evident, which misleads the population by comparing the public budget to a household budget, justifying the lack of investments by claiming that the priority is paying debts. Austerity is the Siamese twin of neoliberalism, which removes the State from its regulatory function in favor of public interest. The tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul shows that austerity and deregulation kill! However, the anthropocentric view that underpins the modern development model is not exempt from blame.

Considered a set of more or less grouped beliefs that seeks to dominate and manipulate nature with the goal of situating its resources within market terms, the presented development project is characterized by the very foundations of modernity — which distinguishes nature and culture in order to stabilize the reality of the world — and which is strengthened and reinvented in contemporary times. Supported by a ‘development apparatus,’ that is, a “set of institutions, agencies, and ideologies that structure the thinking and practice of development” (DE VRIES, 2007, p. 33, free translation), which, although presented as a legal and/or bureaucratic organization, rational and hierarchical, functions as “a crazy and expansive machine, driven by its ability to incorporate, reshape, and reinvent all kinds of development desires” (idem, p. 37).

Thus, dealing with disasters inevitably involves understanding how building and managing cities, producing and ‘strengthening’ the economy are linked to this development project. Defending the changes that made environmental legislation more permissive, the governor of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Eduardo Leite, in an interview with Roda Viva, claimed that the decisions made were not aimed at weakening environmental protection, but rather adjusting them to federal provisions. However, it is known that the changes promoted aim to accelerate environmental licensing processes and reduce bureaucracy, particularly concerning land use for commercial purposes.

In contrast to these policies, fiscal austerity has also been an important factor in weakening disaster response and crisis management. In defense of controlling spending and seeking to attract private investments, governments have cut budgets for agencies linked to environmental protection and have reduced funding for the maintenance of public facilities that deal with extreme events. In Porto Alegre, areas supposedly protected by the anti-flood system were hit or evacuated due to failures in floodgates and rainwater pumping stations.

Furthermore, there were significant difficulties in operating contingency plans. The lack of funds to implement them, the absence of prior balances regarding daily expenses for installing and maintaining temporary shelters, and the fragility in establishing escape routes and the flow of essential supplies such as food, water, and medicine increased the sense of risk among the affected population. In the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, pavilions and gymnasiums had to be evacuated even after they had been designated as shelters due to a lack of information about where the water could reach and which areas were still covered by the city's protection system. In Canoas, the third-largest city in the state, the slogan “us for us” was chanted by residents who took responsibility for much of the rescues and housing of neighbors and family members.

Contrary to what one might imagine, this scenario does not point to the lack of public policies or government action regarding the environment and climate issues. On the contrary, it reveals the production and strengthening of policies and attitudes that view nature as the enemy of development, as an obstacle to the economy — even though the costs and economic losses from managing the tragedy proved to be higher than preventing such events, demonstrating a fragile and senseless rationality.

Thus, what emerges is the need for an alternative project that confronts the adopted policies. A project that, instead of insisting on the opposition of culture/nature, strengthens their relations. Beyond the theoretical contributions of the ontological turn (CALON; HARAWAY; LATOUR; TSING), thinking about the human-non-human relationship emerges as a central element for the constitution of more effective and resilient public policies concerning the climate and humanitarian emergency.

In this sense, the projects developed by the National Secretariat for Peripheries (Secretaria Nacional de Periferias) seem to present an alternative. Focused on the impacts and prevention of extreme events in favelas and peripheries, the launch of the Municipal Risk Reduction Plans (Planos Municipais de Redução de Risco - PMRR) has shown a possibility of overcoming the challenges posed by climate change and neoliberal policies. However, this must be integrated into the economic and development agenda for it to be effectively realized.

Composed of technical teams involving researchers from various fields of knowledge, the work focuses on the geological and hydrographic analysis of peripheral regions and their relations with local populations. Not guided by the policy of favela removals, the central proposal of the plans is precisely to understand, together with residents, the risks present in different areas and to prepare them for a safer and more resilient coexistence with extreme events.

This preparation is carried out through structural interventions, with engineering projects and adjustments to local infrastructure, but also non-structural interventions, such as the planning of booklets and materials focused on environmental education and climate adaptation. Currently being implemented, the PMRR are working to understand the local populations' perception of risk with the aim of proposing interventions that, after their dissemination, need to be understood by public managers in order to seek investments and funding for their implementation.

An important point to highlight is the fact that the PMRR are an initiative of the National Secretariat for Peripheries; however, placing favelas at the center of the debate does not mean these areas are the only ones in need of disaster planning and prevention. Rather, it acknowledges that risk is a factor that involves natural, social, and economic aspects, to which favela populations are more vulnerable. It cannot be said with certainty that the results of the work carried out by the teams behind the plans will be implemented, as political will is necessary for the interventions to be put into practice. However, the unique focus on urban peripheries seems to be a good starting point for building safe, more equitable, and environmentally harmonious development.

See Also

Mudanças Climáticas e Favelas (artigo)

A urgência em tornar as favelas resilientes às mudanças climáticas

Amor é política e tecnologia na luta contra as mudanças climáticas