ENVIRONMENTAL PUBLIC POLICIES FOR SMALL MUNICIPALITIES: THE NEED TO INTEGRATE FAMILY FARMING INTO ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Municipalities are responsible for legislating on environmental protection and issuing environmental licenses for projects and activities that cause significant environmental impacts in urban and rural areas. In the case of rural areas, it is essential that public managers and users of public services provided by licensing agencies pay attention to the characteristics inherent to the countryside, especially agroecology, agroforestry, family farming and small scale rural or community production activities carried out by traditional communities. These characteristics make it possible to identify the distinction between the significant environmental impact generated by agribusiness, which has significant economic power that would enable it to have all the rural assistance and private environmental consultancy necessary to comply with ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) practices, and the anthropic activities originating from these small producers, who, often lacking the economic resources to hire agronomy professionals, lack support from the public authorities in rural extension, in order to mitigate the impacts of these activities, so that environmental justice can occur in the countryside.