Guanabara Bay cleanup a priority ahead of Olympics

Cleaning up Rio's Guanabara Bay plays a key part in Brazil's environmental agenda, said Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira Wednesday (Jan 14). She believes it is possible to meet the state government's goal of having 90 percent of the bay cleansed by the Olympic Games in 2016. She pointed out, however, that the process will not take place “overnight.”

For this reason—the minister said—the rehabilitation should be viewed strategically and in collaboration with society, as has happened throughout the world, through monitoring and inspections. According to Teixeira, the region has been suffering severe impacts, especially over the last 80 to 100 years, as “the population thickened, industrialization consolidated, and Guanabara Bay's drainage area was occupied.”

The minister believes the topic will be prioritized in a measure that should be carried out in collaboration with the people. She highlighted that “quality of life also means quality of environment,” adding that her ministry will work alongside the state and municipal governments in Rio de Janeiro to address the issue.

The minister went on to state that the restoration entails action aimed at improving sanitation, also in the municipalities surrounding the bay. “The fact that the Olympic Games take place in Rio provides the country with strategic motivation to prepare to clean up Guanabara Bay by coming into an agreement with society as to how it's going to happen,” she argued.

“Now, cleaning up the whole of it, as was done with the River Thames, in England, or Paranoá Lake, in Brasília, which has a tertiary sewage treatment, takes time. We must take into consideration everything that was done, and discuss what this effective cleanup means in the coming years,” she noted. She argued that the Olympics should be seen as a chance to consolidate a model in which society takes part in the debate by monitoring the results.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira