Strengthening Environmental Studies for Federal Land Infrastructure Concessions

This policy brief by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI/PUC-Rio) analyzes the socio-environmental components of feasibility and impact studies for federal highway and railroad concessions in the Legal Amazon. The researchers found significant gaps in the coverage of biotic environments, a lack of coordination between Technical, Economic and Environmental Feasibility Studies (EVTEA) and Environmental Assessment Studies (EIA), and a general failure to comply with both international guidelines and national sectoral manuals.

• Environmental studies for land infrastructure prioritize socio-economic and physical environments over the biotic environment (fauna and flora). This imbalance in the EVTEA phase misses the opportunity to integrate biotic analysis into the project's feasibility equation before environmental licensing begins.
• There is a significant overlap between the EVTEA and the EIA, with approximately 30% of components analyzed in the EIA also appearing in the EVTEA. The report suggests that making the correlation between these two studies mandatory would create efficiency gains and allow certain analyses to be conducted earlier.
• Federal land infrastructure studies fail to incorporate all ten key socio-environmental components identified in international guidelines. Specifically, riverine communities were not included in any of the analyzed studies, likely due to a lack of specific protective legislation.
• Compliance with national sectoral manuals is low. In the railroad sector, an average of 47% of components from the VALEC manual were incorporated, while the highway sector incorporated an average of 54% of components from the DNIT manual.
• There is a systemic failure to comply with the Terms of Reference (TR). While highway EVTEAs complied with their TRs, railroad EVTEAs and all analyzed EIAs failed to fully fulfill the items specified in their respective terms of reference.
• The analysis reveals a lack of transparency regarding environmental studies in the sector. Out of 14 analyzed sections, only one project (Ferrogrão) had complete information available for all environmental studies and their corresponding terms of reference.

APA

Climate Policy Initiative (2021). Strengthening Environmental Studies for Federal Land Infrastructure Concessions. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/strengthening-environmental-studies-for-federal-land-infrastructure-concessions/

Chicago

Climate Policy Initiative. Strengthening Environmental Studies for Federal Land Infrastructure Concessions. 2021. https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/strengthening-environmental-studies-for-federal-land-infrastructure-concessions/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Climate Policy Initiative |title=Strengthening Environmental Studies for Federal Land Infrastructure Concessions |date=17 June 2021 |url=https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/strengthening-environmental-studies-for-federal-land-infrastructure-concessions/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{climatepolicyinitiative2021strengthening, author = {{Climate Policy Initiative}}, title = {{Strengthening Environmental Studies for Federal Land Infrastructure Concessions}}, institution = {Climate Policy Initiative}, year = {2021}, month = jun, url = {https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/strengthening-environmental-studies-for-federal-land-infrastructure-concessions/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }