5th Federal Action Plan for the Coastal Zone (V PAF-ZC) 2025-2027.

The 5th Federal Action Plan for the Coastal Zone (V PAF-ZC) 2025-2027 aims to strengthen Brazil’s national capacity to manage its extensive coastal zone—one of the longest in the world—by responding to increasing environmental vulnerabilities intensified by climate change. The plan emphasizes the need for coordinated and science‑based action in the face of rising sea levels, accelerated coastal erosion, extreme events, ocean acidification, and marine deoxygenation. These climate‑driven pressures threaten coastal communities, ecosystems, infrastructure, and economic sectors, making integrated territorial governance a central objective. A key objective of the plan is to enhance environmental protection and resilience across coastal and marine ecosystems that provide essential ecological services. The document highlights the ocean’s crucial role in regulating global climate—absorbing 25% of atmospheric CO₂ and 90% of excess planetary heat—and stresses that safeguarding these systems is fundamental to national climate adaptation and mitigation efforts. Preserving coastal habitats supports biodiversity, maintains ecosystem productivity, and reduces cumulative impacts arising from human activities—including overexploitation, pollution, and habitat degradation—which the plan seeks to address through strategic and coordinated interventions.
Another major objective is to improve territorial and environmental governance by integrating and aligning public policies across federal, state, and local levels. The plan recognizes that disordered coastal occupation, mass tourism, infrastructure expansion, and extractive pressures require a robust governance framework to prevent ecosystem loss and ensure sustainable decision‑making. It reinforces the need for interministerial coordination, structured planning tools, and operational guidance that support informed management of coastal zones, reducing fragmentation in policy implementation and improving the oversight of coastal‑marine activities. Finally, the plan aims to promote sustainable economic development that is compatible with the ecological sensitivity of the coastal‑marine zone. It acknowledges the region’s economic importance—hosting tourism, fisheries, aquaculture, offshore mineral exploitation, hydrocarbon production, navigation, ports, and logistics hubs—while highlighting the urgent need to reconcile economic growth with environmental sustainability. The plan therefore promotes integrated management approaches that reduce cumulative impacts, protect coastal livelihoods, and secure long‑term socio‑ecological resilience, laying the foundation for a sustainable coastal economy that benefits present and future generations.