Sustainability and environmental justice at Baixada Fluminense: identifying environmental problems based on the demands to the Public Prosecutor

Abstract

The present article intends to demonstrate, through the result of research developed with the Public Prosecutor of the municipality of Nova Iguaçu, that the Baixada Fluminense region, already recognized as a sacrifice area within the metropolis of Rio de Janeiro, has a population that feels its environmental problems based on issues related to poverty, to absence of basic conditions of urban infrastructure, and to the accumulation of pollutant economic activiti es in that territory. This feeling of the population seems to demonstrate the environmental injustice that occurs in that territorial space as a result of public policies that are more related to omissions than actions. In this scenario, in order to have environmental sustainability, this situation must be reversed urgently.