Juca Ferreira: Brazilian heritage is threatened by the Temer government.

by Juca Ferreira

A very serious and worrying new situation is unfolding at the Ministry of Culture (MinC) under Michel Temer's interim government. Not only was there an absurd and disastrous attempt to abolish the Ministry, but now IPHAN – the National Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage, an institution with 80 years of existence, predating MinC itself – is threatened with dismantling, weakening, and a loss of autonomy.

The interim president and the current Minister of Culture, Marcelo Calero, issued a Provisional Measure creating a Secretariat for National Historical and Artistic Heritage with the clear objective of interfering with and overriding the rigorous technical work carried out by the Institute.

IPHAN operates in strategic areas, such as the protection and oversight of built historical heritage, the promotion and preservation of intangible and archaeological heritage, in addition to carrying out works under the PAC Historic Cities program. It plays a strategic role because it licenses constructions, restorations, and renovations in protected areas, actively participating as an intervening body in environmental licensing. It is the only agency within the Ministry of Culture with units throughout the country, operating in an extremely organized and regulated sector.

IPHAN is a technical body with the characteristics of a state agency; it has police power and the authority to regulate and restrict private interests and to regulate public interventions. Therefore, it must be preserved without undue interference.

The interim government's objective in creating a Secretariat to subordinate IPHAN is to exclude it from strategic decisions where heritage, real estate interests, and infrastructure projects conflict. It aims to restrict its scope of action, even making regulations that ensure the protection of heritage and environmental areas more flexible.

Environmental licensing

I have been an environmentalist for over 30 years and I know that IPHAN (National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage) makes a decisive contribution to the protection of environmental preservation areas. Its regulatory and supervisory role is essential to ensure that coastal zones, protected natural areas, parks, and conservation units are effectively shielded from real estate speculation and predatory construction.

The Agenda Brasil, introduced by Temer and guiding his interim government, already pointed towards a relaxation of this protection. Senator and suspended minister Romero Jucá himself has a bill that aims to authorize real estate developments without the necessary environmental permits.

This project was already being processed in Congress when the disaster occurred on the Rio Doce in Minas Gerais. With the current environmental licensing system, predatory actions are already able to circumvent the rules irresponsibly and criminally; imagine what they will do if there is any relaxation of the rules.

Real estate speculation

Port areas, central areas of large cities, former industrial areas, and historical centers, once undervalued, are now "noble" spaces, highly profitable for real estate developments or "modern urban operations." In these locations, the work of IPHAN (National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage) has prevented the destruction of the important cultural heritage of our cities, as well as preventing the social cleansing of these places, which should be considered as living and human social spaces.

It is a risk for the country to remove this responsibility from Iphan and place it in the hands of an entity designed to accommodate the most nefarious speculative interests.

Administrative fallacy

The interim government came with a strong discourse of streamlining the public sector. With this justification, and just a stroke of the pen, it extinguished the Ministry of Culture. But the truth is that, instead of cutting, Temer created yet another secretariat within the Ministry of Culture's structure, proving, once again, that his discourse is a fallacy.

Furthermore, the creation of another structure, unduly "competing" with IPHAN, will lead to overlapping responsibilities, distortion of competencies, and institutional deterioration.

Big risk

What is at stake, therefore, is not only the country's cultural heritage, but also its most solid institution, IPHAN, which demonstrates a total lack of responsibility towards culture and a clear capitulation to the most nefarious political interests in this area so sensitive to national development.