In Brazil, a pivotal runoff election will take place this Sunday, October 25, between President Lula and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. The country is basically divided in half and there is a lot on the line – including public beach access.
Flávio Bolsonaro, whose father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, is in prison serving a sentence of more than 27 years after Brazil’s Supreme Court convicted him of plotting a coup, has been frequently in the news for several scandals, most notably because of his ties to Daniel Vorcaro. Vorcaro is at the center of a massive financial and political scandal in Brazil following the extrajudicial liquidation of his bank, Banco Master, in November 2025 amid allegations of multi-billion-dollar fraud. In leaked WhatsApp messages reported by Brazilian outlets, Flávio refers to Vorcaro as his “brother.” Flávio says his dealings with the banker were strictly commercial and private – despite revelations detailing his requests for millions of dollars to fund a biopic about his father called Dark Horse.
In addition to a myriad of scandals and dubious policy ideas, he has promised to loosen environmental regulations in the Amazon, the world’s greatest home of biodiversity, and he is the leading Senate supporter of a controversial bill that critics say would privatize the country’s beaches.
Supporters of the bill, known as PEC 3/2022 or “PEC das Praias,” deny that it would privatize the beaches, saying it would only grant legal certainty to occupants (which is ironic given the situation laid out below) and encourage “tourism development.” The bill would revoke federal ownership of terrenos de marinha, coastal land within 33 meters of the 1831 average high-tide line. To be fair, the sand and sea would remain public under the text. But the coastal land around them would not, essentially putting the land around beaches up for sale, where new owners could then restrict access with fences and guards.
You don’t have to be a genius to read between the lines and see what critics see: a land grab that stands to enrich developers and the well-connected. To further illustrate Flávio’s character, consider the bizarre episode from this summer concerning a famous Brazilian footballer.
Richarlison de Andrade, the striker whose bicycle kick was FIFA’s goal of the 2022 World Cup, says Flávio Bolsonaro and a lawyer friend took a mansion and private island off Angra dos Reis that he’d put roughly R$10 million (about US $2 million) into. Richarlison says he received multiple offers to buy the island after he invested, including one from Flávio, and turned them all down.
According to multiple video posts and interviews with Richarlison, the ownership status of the island was complex, and he and his investors were told the paperwork could take months, or even years, to complete the transfer of title under his name.
Instead, he says, Flávio’s lawyer friend, Willer Tomaz, was able to attain ownership within 24 hours, and the title now sits with a company linked to Tomaz. Richarlison says he was never paid. Flávio says he was only a witness in the case, and Tomaz says the courts ruled in his favor. Brazil’s Federal Police have been asked to investigate. If you ask me, it seems abundantly clear that they abused their power to steal the island after the striker says he’d put roughly $2 million into it.
Whatever a court or investigators ultimately decide, the story is a reminder of how this works. A powerful man wants a prized piece of coastline, and the legal process ends in his favor. The irony is that the beach bill Flávio champions promises “legal certainty to occupants.”
In Brazil, as anywhere, that certainty tends to favor the people with the lawyers, and now the same logic could be applied at a national scale to what should be the people’s shared resources.
One doesn’t need to look too hard for examples of how private beach access disproportionately impacts those without wealth. Hawaii and California are lucky to have public access enshrined in law. It’s a different story on the East Coast, where surfers and beachgoers in many towns need paid passes to access beaches. In Jamaica, fewer than 1% of beaches are accessible to the public free of charge, according to a recent NPR/WBUR report, leaving locals shut out of their own coastline.
Once a private system is in place, it becomes much easier to start moving the goal posts: first it’s seasonal passes, then year-round passes, then parking spots are removed and, slowly but surely, public access becomes all but impossible. The AI generated video below details the issues on the line in the coming election.
Surfing in Brazil has made a massve impact ever since Gabriel Medina’s World Title in 2014 and the subsequent Brazilian Storm. The privatization of the beaches could easily lead to a drought in World Titles, and the glory years of Brazilian surf dominance would quickly fade into the rearview mirror.
Brazil’s beaches are loved around the world precisely for their inclusivity and beauty. Ask any visitor who’s been to Rio and they’ll tell you they’ve never experienced anything like the beaches there. Once they become private, they become like every other resort-like destination around the world: sterile, dull, and lifeless.
Related: A Drug Smuggler Founded Pavones. Now The ‘Utopia’ Is Fighting for Its Life.
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