ABSTRACT
The coastal zone houses almost 23% of the world’s population. In Brazil, this area corresponds to approximately 10,800 km of coastline, comprising 443 coastal municipalities, distributed across 17 states. Beaches cover around 83,000 hectares and play a key role in protecting the coast, preserving ecosystems and biodiversity, and contributing to human well-being. The increase in human activities in these areas intensifies the associated problems and poses a risk to human health. Realizing the need for more proactive actions, the Instituto Ambientes em Rede team decided to start the Blue Flag program in Brazil. The pilot phase started in 2006 with ten beaches, previously selected and analyzed by a National Commission. Currently, Brazil has 29 beaches and 11 award-winning marinas, in addition to another 15 beaches and two marinas in the pilot phase, preparing to enrol in the next 2023–2024 season. Despite the challenges in implementing the Blue Flag Programme in Brazil, it has the potential to contribute to the improvement of the socio-environmental quality of our beaches and marinas. It can improve coastal ecosystems’ health, water quality, accessibility and quality of life. It also helps raise environmental awareness due to educational activities and delivers better services for tourists and the local community.
