The environmental issues in the contemporary world are no longer limited to the private sector or public sector. industry, commerce and governments are no longer the only agents interacting within the environment discussion.

The current laws are not based on protection and essential attention on environmental issues and require the participation of an agent of paramount importance: the citizen. according to the dictionary, citizen is a person who is a member of a country and has rights or any performance of their duties to a state.

The environmental problems that lead every day on our street, neighborhood, city, state, country, world and finally in our universe cannot be considered someone else’s problem. they are problems of each of us. the climate change or the global warming, for example, does not only threaten the planet, as if it were an event far from us. it threatens our own health. it threatens our food sources and sets a tragic scenario for future generations.

Therefore, our participation as citizens are indispensable. we must be alert to everything that happens with the environment, our services and our fundamental role, as specialists of how apply the current environment legislation and the agencies who can act to assert this legislation.

It is necessary for a consumer society to have aware citizens who require to industries and enterprises an ethical and transparent behavior regarding the environment. and if the citizen are aware of any harmful fact to the environment, that already happened or
can potentially happen, so the citizen may denouce and engage in understanding and discussing that fact.

It’s not the intention of this study to make a report or a political statement, but the effective participation of citizens that seek a better world.

In this way local, regional and occasional actions that bring to the debate the repercussions of events that harm the environment and that provide an articulation of the communities and those involved are a solution to most of the existing problems. these problems, generally, do not still persist due to the absence of laws, but lack of interest and lack of knowledge of the people in a general way.

If we discuss the present, it is because we had a past and we want to guarantee a future. taking care of the environment,means participating. we have never had so many instruments and government agencies to help us in this long-lasting vigil for the environment.

However, if due this complexity nothing can be done, so we may see environmental issues closer to us, such as deforestation, water pollution and aggression against fauna and flora.

Bento rodrigues is not only a tragedy to be reported, but an alert of the fragility and even absence of responsibility in the face of the silent and everyday transformations of our environment. therefore the relevance of this work that seeks, through the indissociable relation between teaching, research and outreach, to give voice, color and text to this responsability.

EMERSON LUIZ DE CASTRO
Master of law from the Milton Campos Law School