The Role of the Ecological Fiscal
Transfers for Water Conservation
Policies
Felipe Luiz Lima de Paulo and Pedro Jorge Sobral Camões
Abstract The purpose of this chapter is to fill the lacuna found in the literature with
regard to describing the role of EFTs for water conservation policies. The literature
tells us that ecological fiscal transfers (EFTs) are analysed so to pursue biodiversity
conservation policies and solid waste management (SWM). For biodiversity conservation policies, EFTs have two purposes: (1) to incentivize municipalities to create
local protected areas (PA); and (2) to compensate municipalities for corresponding
land-use restrictions. In the case of SWM, the main idea is that, even considering
the fees paid by the households, it is still costly to maintain waste services in the
municipal territories. In this context, EFTs are appealing policy instrument to help
local governments create landfills or composting plants. However, in Brazil EFTs
are functioning as a policy instrument which also includes a wide range of policy
domains, such as water conservation, indigenous land, fire-control, and so on. Six
states adopted EFTs specifically for water conservation policies: Goiás, Paraná, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio de Janeiro, and Tocantins. Descriptive analyses, focusing on
legislative differences are conducted for each of these states.
Keywords Ecological fiscal transfers · Water conservation policies · Brazil
1 Introduction
Ecological fiscal transfers (EFTs) redistributes revenues from upper to lower levels of government using ecological indicators (Ring and Barton 2015). Brazil
was the first country to adopt ecological indicators in fiscal transfers (Ring 2008;
Paulo and Camões 2018), followed by Portugal (Droste et al. 2017) and France
F. L. L. de Paulo (B)
Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, Av. Gregório Ferraz Nogueira, S/N - José Tomé de
Souza Ramos, Caixa Postal: 063, PE 56909-535 Serra Talhada, Brazil
e-mail: felipe.paulo@ufrpe.br
P. J. S. Camões
University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal
e-mail: pedroc@eeg.uminho.pt
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Universities and Sustainable Communities:
Meeting the Goals of the Agenda 2030, World Sustainability Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30306-8_3
61
Transfers for Water Conservation
Policies
Felipe Luiz Lima de Paulo and Pedro Jorge Sobral Camões
Abstract The purpose of this chapter is to fill the lacuna found in the literature with
regard to describing the role of EFTs for water conservation policies. The literature
tells us that ecological fiscal transfers (EFTs) are analysed so to pursue biodiversity
conservation policies and solid waste management (SWM). For biodiversity conservation policies, EFTs have two purposes: (1) to incentivize municipalities to create
local protected areas (PA); and (2) to compensate municipalities for corresponding
land-use restrictions. In the case of SWM, the main idea is that, even considering
the fees paid by the households, it is still costly to maintain waste services in the
municipal territories. In this context, EFTs are appealing policy instrument to help
local governments create landfills or composting plants. However, in Brazil EFTs
are functioning as a policy instrument which also includes a wide range of policy
domains, such as water conservation, indigenous land, fire-control, and so on. Six
states adopted EFTs specifically for water conservation policies: Goiás, Paraná, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio de Janeiro, and Tocantins. Descriptive analyses, focusing on
legislative differences are conducted for each of these states.
Keywords Ecological fiscal transfers · Water conservation policies · Brazil
1 Introduction
Ecological fiscal transfers (EFTs) redistributes revenues from upper to lower levels of government using ecological indicators (Ring and Barton 2015). Brazil
was the first country to adopt ecological indicators in fiscal transfers (Ring 2008;
Paulo and Camões 2018), followed by Portugal (Droste et al. 2017) and France
F. L. L. de Paulo (B)
Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, Av. Gregório Ferraz Nogueira, S/N - José Tomé de
Souza Ramos, Caixa Postal: 063, PE 56909-535 Serra Talhada, Brazil
e-mail: felipe.paulo@ufrpe.br
P. J. S. Camões
University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal
e-mail: pedroc@eeg.uminho.pt
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
W. Leal Filho et al. (eds.), Universities and Sustainable Communities:
Meeting the Goals of the Agenda 2030, World Sustainability Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30306-8_3
61