On the outrageous reallocation of funds to the portfolio of Environment to Football for all government program for the transmission of this sport in public TV Argentina. On Thursday 18 February announced the surprising news of the diversion of more than 140 million pesos of consignments to the Ministry of Environment to cover the deficit created by the agreement between the Government and the AFA. In this situation, the Fundacion Vida Silvestre Argentina expressed its opposition to the reallocation of funds intended for environmental management for other purposes and requests that you review this measure. The decision does not cease to amaze, to make it clear once again the priority of the sensitive environmental issues of state policy. Despite the emphasis in official discourse of the importance of the issue on the public agenda, this reduction in the budget for the area is just one example of the little attention given to one of the main concerns of society. It’s easy to add examples of this point: the bare budget given to the implementation of the Forest Act (less than 50% of predicted in the standard), the lack of concrete measures to resolve the problem of fishing for hake (whose population reduced in the last 20 years by 80%), among many others. The removal of funds for the environmental portfolio, occurs at the wrong time and in the worst way. Further increasing mistrust of provincial governments, which are still defining its territorial organization, and who will be reluctant to commit forces to manage their native forests if we do not see any intention of complying with the commitment from the State National.

A clear example of this situation is the proposal of Land Management recently presented by the Province of Formosa, in which almost 90% of its territory has remained in the lowest category of protection and can not access the subsidy by the Nation. It is clear that the subsidy could have functioned as an incentive for different forest management, but not the distant promise of a possible grant. The area that is underfunded to favor the “Football for All” is precisely that in which the national budget is in debt, and not only by the smallness of its funding, but because it also explicitly the 2010 National Budget Law establishes that the departure of Ecology and Environment be increased to 300 million to form the National Endowment for the Enrichment and Conservation of Native Forests. It should be mentioned that the law that established the fund 26 331 actually provided conform it to “at least 0.3% of the national budget, or about 821 million pesos. What do 144 million? Equivalent to half the budget allocation for 2010 for the implementation of the Forest Act is equivalent to 65% of the annual budget of the National Parks Administration, which manages the main system of protected areas in the country. Equivalent to half of the annual budget for 2010 of the four areas (Planning and Environmental Policy, Promotion of Sustainable Development, Environmental Policy Coordination and Environmental Control) most relevant to the Programme Secretariat Ambiente.El Football for All and was assigned twice presupposed that these four areas of the Secretariat of Environment and Sustainable Development as a whole. Source: World Wildlife Fund.