The Environment Minister, Adrián Peña, was in Colonia a few days ago, where, among other things, he visited the redoubt dump. On the other hand, he was consulted on various current national topics. For example, Peña was consulted about the controversial Neptune project, which is opposed by the OSE union, for the Ministry of the Environment, solving the water supply in the metropolitan area includes extracting water from the Arazatí spa, precisely through the Neptune Plan, as well as advancing in the Casupá dam.
Peña said that the investment is not isolated from the work of the dam since it is about strengthening the system. The Federation of OSE Officials (FFOSE) raised with President Lacalle Pou its rejection of the private model for the Neptune Plan, so the OSE workers took this proposal to the minister. According to Peña, the idea is that by the middle of this month, the project will be ready to carry out the call for bids. “Nothing is closed and nothing is 100% defined,” he said.
The Secretary of State also reported that the ministry will be renamed Environment and Sustainable Development. The government will promote change with an additive in accountability to consolidate the areas of action of this portfolio. Thus he recounted: “An approach that also intends that the Ministry of the Environment be a protagonist in something that matters a lot to us and that is the design of medium and long-term public policies. That has to do with sustainability”, pointed out the hierarch.
“A nation is not built starting from 0 every time a new government assumes”
For his part, after meeting with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Minister of the Environment, Adrián Peña, confirmed the creation of a commission to work on the problem of food waste in our country. .
Peña explained that this is an official committee that will address the situation and begin to build a strategy to address the issue. The ministry is committed since in Uruguay 1 million residues are generated. According to the Secretary of State, between 8% and 10% of greenhouse gases, which generate global warming, originate from food waste. According to FAO data, a third of food is wasted worldwide. This challenges the distribution and sales, productive, economic systems, Peña said, but there is also an ethical and moral issue since there are 800 million people who suffer from hunger and 1 in 3 suffers from food insecurity. “The idea of the committee is to articulate policies that have to do with management, with the reduction of losses, but also to ensure food for people and quality of food,” he stressed.
The minister also referred to the National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change and the launch of the 2022 “Sustainable Uruguay” National Environment Award. The Secretary of State maintained that the previous administration “left pending decisions regarding the organization chart, decisions on how to move forward in certain policies and whether or not certain lines of action were renewed. There are also agreements that are falling, with universities, with study centers or with international comparison, for example. So things keep piling up,” he clarified. Then he limited: “We believe that a nation is built this way, it is not starting from scratch every time a government assumes. There was a lot going on, very well channeled and very well directed, and in general terms we have been continuing and going deeper into some policies. Obviously there are some nuances, but in general terms Uruguay has had an environmental construction policy of no less than 30 years, with a very powerful regulatory body on that and our idea was always to build on it and not destroy what had been working well. And it is something that we want to see happen when we leave as well,” said Environment Minister Adrián Peña.
