A study carried out by Instituto Pólis in the cities of São Paulo, Recife and Belém shows that black and low-income people are the population groups most impacted by environmental tragedies, such as floods and landslides. Between the two segments, households headed by women are the most affected.
The survey, according to the institute, highlights the maintenance of environmental racism, a concept that deals with the exposure of certain groups to unhealthy environments with little infrastructure.
In Recife, for example, the study identified 677 areas at risk of landslides, most of them concentrated in mangrove regions and in neighborhoods such as Afogados, Jardim São Paulo, Iburas and Areias.
In these places, the proportion of black people is 68%, while the rate of households headed by low-income women is around 27%.
The predominantly black presence is repeated in areas with risk of flooding in the capital of Pernambuco, where the rate reaches 59%. Households headed by women earning up to one minimum wage represent 22.1% of properties in regions susceptible to flooding.
In Belém, on the other hand, one in five homes in areas at risk of flooding or erosion caused by water is owned by low-income women.
The study also shows that, in the capital of Pará, the 125 areas at risk of an environmental tragedy do not coincide with the neighborhoods with the highest purchasing power in the city, where the proportion of the white population is also higher.
“It is necessary to direct attention and actions to these groups. They are the most affected by environmental disasters aggravated by climate change and who live daily with a lack of basic services and in risky situations”, says the study by Pólis, which also an alert for the prevalence of diseases arising from precarious water supply and sanitation services.
According to data compiled by the survey, the black population of Belém and Recife is the most affected by waterborne diseases, representing 66% and 64% of cases, respectively.
Of the hospitalizations that took place in the two cities last year due to the worsening of these diseases, 51% of the people hospitalized in Belém and 53% of the people who occupied beds in Recife were black or brown.
“The study shows that environmental impacts in cities are socially produced. They are not just the result of climatic events, but the result of negligence on the part of the government”, says researcher at the Pólis Institute Ana Sanches. “This imbalance is, in part, an expression of socio-environmental injustice and environmental racism in cities,” she continues.
The patterns seen in Belém and Recife are also repeated in the country’s largest city, São Paulo — the proportion of black people in areas at risk of landslides is 55%. These regions are concentrated in the north and south and in several more impoverished areas in the east and west of São Paulo.
Unequal distribution of resources, lack of urban planning and lack of public policies to solve these problems would be some of the systemic negligence of the public authorities in the three capitals, according to the study.
“Environmental racism is evident when the consequences of environmental degradation are concentrated in peripheral neighborhoods and territories, where poorer families live and where there is a greater concentration of black, indigenous and quilombola people”, says the Pólis Institute.
with BIANKA VIEIRA, KARINA MATIAS and MANOELLA SMITH
