Brazil’s National Water Resources Council (CNRH), the body that sets federal water policy, last month approved a new tax to boost water conservation and wastewater treatment in the Paraíba do Sul water basin, a highly-polluted network of rivers running through three southeastern states. The federal tax, the first of its kind in Brazil, will be paid by some 7,000 industrial firms and 180 mostly state- or city-owned water treatment companies in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Minas Gerais states. Its approval reflects the growing use in Latin America of so-called economic instruments—measures aimed at harnessing market forces to achieve environmental objectives. (See “Economic instruments gaining environmental clout”—EcoAméricas, August ‘99.) Brazil’s new, two-pronged tax consists of a levy of... [Log in to read more]
