Law No. 15.434 establishing the Environmental Code within the State of Rio Grande do Sul.

This Law, consisting of 233 articles divided into 19 Chapters, establishes the Environmental Code within the State of Rio Grande do Sul. The Code aims to guarantee an ecologically balanced environment, ensuring quality of life and citizens' rights, such as: access to public information on the quality and availability of environmental resources; information on the environmental impacts of projects and activities that are potentially harmful to health and the stability of the environment; environmental education, as an essential and permanent element of state education, in a formal and non-formal character; access to Conservation Units and other legally protected areas in the public domain, safeguarding the achievement of their protection objective; and give opinion for projects and activities potentially harmful to health and the environment, on their location and operating standards. The State must have efficient and intelligible public databases in order to guarantee the rights provided for, in addition to establishing the State Environmental Information System. Everyone is responsible for maintaining a healthy environment that provides quality of life for present and future generations, and individuals and companies are responsible for the damages they cause to the environment, as well as correcting, at their expense, the effects of the degrading or polluting activity.