Over 8.000 km of coastline, basically not much more than the Italian one, which being a peninsula exceeds 7.000 km. But the coast of Brazil, as well as hosting heavenly places and some of the beaches most famous in the world like those of Rio de Janeiro, is explicitly protected in the Constitution of 1988 as a "natural heritage".
This is why, unlike here where almost the entire coast is now in private hands through concessions extended for decades, in the South American country public beach is sacred. At least until today, given that in 2022 the son of the then president Jair Bolsonaro, the deputy Flavio, had presented a proposal for constitutional reform, the so-called "PEC das praias", where PEC stands for "proposta de emenda constitucional" and that is precisely a proposal for change the rules which regulate the possibility of selling the portion of territory near the coast to private individuals, with all that this entails on a social, economic and environmental level.
Private beaches: Neymar's project
The bill, already approved by the Chamber of Deputies, has returned to the fore in recent weeks after the footballer Neymar, who is not very popular in Brazil and will be even less so after this affair, he announced on social media real estate project worth 7,5 billion reais (approximately 1,5 billion euros) on the coast of Pernambuco and Alagoas, in the North-East of the country. Neymar, always a supporter of Bolsonaro, was thus accused by the press and public opinion of push for the approval of the law and to immediately want to take advantage of it. The footballer for his part confirmed the initiative in partnership with thereal estate company Two to create "the Brazilian Caribbean, bringing economic and social development to the north-eastern coast", but he returned the accusations of supporting Bolsonaro to the sender, announcing a lawsuit against his ex-partner and mother of his child, the actress Luana Piovani, who had attacked him publicly.
In Brazil however the case has caused scandal regardless of the involvement of the Al Hilal star, first of all to defend democratic access to the beach (which in truth would not be expressly called into question with the new law) and above all to avoid a building speculation which in times of climate change would also bring with it enormous risks for the environment and for people's safety.
Brazil, the beach is sacred: what the Constitution says
La Brazilian Constitution in fact, it provides that a 33 meter wide strip of land, close to the sea but not directly in contact (this is why public access to the beach would still be safe), is buildable through concessions but remains strictly the property of the federal government, while with the reforms the so-called "marine land” would pass into the hands of individual states, municipalities and even private individuals. This would mean clear real estate projects at a distance from the sea that risks not being so safe, given that the famous 33 meters are calculated starting from an imaginary coastline drawn way back in 1831, well before climatic phenomena caused the erosion of a good part of the coast. According to data from the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, approximately 40% of the country's coastline is in advanced state of erosion, and in large part this is due to the buildings close to the beach, which prevent the sand, moved by wind and tides, from following its natural dynamics. As of today, they are officially available in Brazil 565.000 properties erected precisely in the "terrenos de marinha" and changing the current concession regime, in addition to environmental and social damage, would also bring economic damage to the coffers of the central state, which in 2023 collected over 2 billion reais from the occupation taxes of the ground.
Public opinion remains against it
The question, however, is first of all conceptual: precisely to avoid finding ourselves in a European and above all Italian-style situation, where unfortunately we consider it normal to build by the sea and spend a fortune to access the beach, thepublic opinion it is unitedly aligned against the "PEC das praias", to defend a right that is ultimately recognized in the Constitution.
“The beach – the professor from the USP University of Sao Paulo summed it up well Alexander Turra, expert in ocean conservation – is society's point of contact with the benefits generated by the ocean, starting with the spiritual and psychological ones”.
