Advancement of renewable energy is a source of socio-environmental conflicts in the NE – 12/22/2023 – Market

The race for renewable energy sources in Brazil has generated a series of outbreaks of socio-environmental conflicts, mainly in the Northeast region — a scenario that, for experts, demands greater planning and rigor in environmental licensing.

Especially given the increasingly intense warnings about the climate emergency, which should accelerate the implementation of projects around the world, as recommended by the final report of COP 28, held this month in the United Arab Emirates.

The problems highlighted by promoters and associations range from conflicts with communities to risks of environmental damage, such as the threat to endemic species and the deforestation of the caatinga, a biome privileged by strong winds and solar irradiation.

The sector recognizes errors in old projects, but says it has been reinforcing recommendations for the use of best practices both in relations with local communities and in protecting the environment.

One of the countries with great potential to lead the energy transition, Brazil has doubled its wind energy production capacity and increased its solar generation capacity six-fold in the last five years.

And the pace should remain intense in the coming years: in 2023 alone, Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency) has already granted concessions to 1,614 new solar and 317 wind farms. With a good incidence of light and sun, the Northeast region and the north of Minas Gerais concentrate most of the projects.

“The arrival of renewable energy projects is important, but it is necessary to remember that there is life, there are people, there is fauna in the territories where they arrive”, says prosecutor Luciana Khouri, from the Public Ministry of Bahia.

“Just because it’s the best location for generating wind doesn’t mean you have to put [o parque gerador] there. We have had a lot of problems with the lack of care for traditional communities and local biodiversity.”

Khouri is part of a group from the Bahian Public Prosecutor’s Office that works to monitor these projects. In April, together with the Federal Public Ministry, they obtained an injunction against the installation of a wind farm in Canudos, in the north of the state, alleging alleged failures in environmental licensing.

In the request for an injunction, which was overturned in the second instance, they question the lack of an environmental impact study, required when there are endemic species, and prior consultation with communities, required when there are traditional communities.

The installation of the Canudos park is one of the conflicts listed by the Social Injustice and Health Map of Fiocruz (Fundação Osvaldo Cruz), which also sees impacts on fishing activity in Rio Grande do Norte and the fight against real estate speculation in Caetités (BA) .

In Caetés (PE), a study by UFPE (University of Pernambuco) found that in the community of Sobradinho, where the average distance from houses to wind turbines is 411 meters, 70% of the population uses continuous medication and 64% take sleeping pills.

“My wife became aggressive, didn’t eat and didn’t sleep. Then I had no choice: I had to abandon the property,” said farmer Simão Salgado, 75, at a hearing on the issue at the Pernambuco Legislative Assembly in early December.

His neighbor rented the land for the installation of nine wind turbines, one of them 200 meters from his house. “If we had signed the contract [de arrendamento] and we were receiving some resources, I couldn’t be complaining, but we were just affected by the project.”

On another front, Inesc (Institute of Socioeconomic Studies) assesses that even those who leased land may face problems, despite revenue that varies between 1% and 1.5% of the production value of each wind turbine.

Analysis of 50 contracts highlighted asymmetries that favor companies, such as automatic term renewals and the possibility of unilateral termination only by the entrepreneur. There are already lawsuits questioning the terms in several states, says lawyer Claudionor Vital.

He claims that the owners have little legal knowledge and are prohibited from talking about the contracts due to confidentiality clauses. They sign, lulled by the “siren song”: “these are properties with low productivity and the contracts generate income; this is the companies’ argument”.

Individual consultation with residents close to the projects is questioned by prosecutor Khouri. “We need to discuss as a collective because [as comunidades] They have a way of living collectively. Arriving with a proposal for one or two people, we have serious reflections.”

In Canudos, the installation of the wind farm divided the Bom Jardim community, a remote rural area, about 60 kilometers from the nearest highway, into dirt and sand roads surrounded by thick caatinga vegetation.

“If it weren’t for this [o projeto], we had already died”, argues rural producer José Dantas de Oliveira, 55, pointing to the vegetation and cattle punished by the drought. “We pay R$ 150 to bring water and it doesn’t last three days. Now the company comes and brings it to us.”

Critics of the project prefer not to have their names mentioned for fear of reprisals. They are, in general, from a grassland community in the region, a type of traditional community from the caatinga that raises animals freely on free land, which facilitates access to water and food.

They claim that the removal of vegetation and the opening of roads harm cattle and goat farming and drive jaguars out of the forest, putting the animals at risk. They also fear that the situation will worsen when wind turbines come closer to their homes, creating noise and health problems.

In 2022, the MapBiomas platform identified for the first time deforestation of the caatinga by projects of this type. 23 deforestation alerts were recorded for the construction of photovoltaic plants, with an area of ​​3,203.48 hectares. For wind farms, there were 23 alerts, totaling 1,087.80 hectares.

Together, they form an area equivalent to that administered by the sub-prefecture of Lapa, in São Paulo, which includes Lapa, Barra Funda, Jaguara, Jaguaré, Perdizes and Vila Leopoldina. Washington Rocha, coordinator of the Caatinga team at MapBiomas, says that renewable sources have two distinct threat patterns.

“Wind energy mainly threatens the forest remnants of the caatinga because they are installed at altitude. Solar energy threatens more broadly and to a greater extent, because they occupy areas that are too large to spread the plates.”

In Canudos, in addition to the wind farm with plans for 81 wind turbines to generate energy, of which 28 are already installed, Voltalia also plans to build a solar park.

Public prosecutors and experts fear the effects of the projects on Lear’s macaw, which was practically extinct, with a population of less than 100 individuals in the 1970s. Today, after decades of conservation programs, there are more than 2,000.

“Their behavior is curious, they leave their dormitories and fly far away to feed, early in the day”, says prosecutor Luciana Khouri. “These behaviors needed to be studied for licensing.”

French company Voltalia, operator of the park, says that the turbines have been operating since November “without any record of incident”. “R$800 million was invested in the project, including carrying out all necessary studies and implementing recommended safety measures.”

The company also says that it created a conservation program for the Lear’s Macaw and has promoted actions, such as the replanting of liculizeiro, the species’ main food, which was also threatened with extinction due to deforestation actions.

“In addition, it adopted measures to protect the species, such as the installation of an alert system unprecedented in Brazil, which stops the turbines in the event of birds approaching”, he concluded, in a note.

Good practice guides will avoid new conflicts, says sector

The president of Abeeólica (Brazilian Association of Wind Energy Companies), Elbia Gannoun, says that the sector began to become aware of the conflicts in 2020 and has been acting to resolve them and avoid their recurrence in the future.

In Caetés, for example, entrepreneurs are negotiating the purchase of properties affected by noise from wind turbines. The remaining cases are residents who have not yet reached agreements.

Regarding contracts with asymmetries, he says that, in general, they were signed by agents who identify areas with high potential for selling projects to energy companies. “It’s a more complex issue, but they have to be resolved.”

The association will launch a best practice guide at the beginning of 2024 to try to improve the development of projects and their relationship with communities, including suggesting models of lease contracts.

“Wind energy, from an environmental point of view, has a very low impact. From a social point of view, if it isn’t having it, it has to have a very low impact,” she says.

Absolar states in a note that the “vast majority of these projects are built in places with lower demographic density and on land that is already disturbed and has low productivity, which would not normally be used for other activities”.

The implementation of the projects, he continues, “meets strict legal, regulatory and environmental requirements, including regarding their licensing, mitigation and compensation for possible impacts on the surrounding area” and is accompanied by interactions with local communities.

ESG standards, he concludes, determine that local treatments are fair and transparent, especially with more vulnerable populations.

The issue of conflicts is currently debated by the social area of ​​the government in Brasília. The MDA (Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture) says it has been receiving complaints from quilombola and traditional communities about the installation of parks.

“We have been talking about this with community leaders and we are trying to open a dialogue with companies about this right”, says the head of division of the Ministry’s Secretariat of Quilombola Territories and Productive Systems and Traditional Peoples and Communities, Andressa Lewandowski.

Lawyer Claudionor Vital highlights that other types of natural resources, such as ore, oil or hydroelectric potential, are considered Union assets and, therefore, governments receive compensation for their exploitation, which can be reverted to the benefit of local communities.

The sun and wind, which only recently began to be used economically, do not legally fit into this definition. “What is happening in this process is the private appropriation of natural resources without any benefit for the communities”, he states.

With the need to find substitutes for oil, he highlights, companies will start investing in the production of green hydrogen using renewable energy, which will increase the demand for new projects.

“We have to think about the amount of energy the country needs,” he says. “Many of these parks are being planned to export energy in some form.”