The Regional Environment Inspectorate (IRA) is the service of the Regional Secretariat for Energy, Environment and Tourism responsible for ensuring compliance with legal standards with environmental impact in the Autonomous Region of the Azores.

Non-compliance with environmental standards is a reality in our Region. Therefore, there is a real threat to the environment around us, a worrisome situation if we realise how essential is to increasingly promote ourselves as an Ecological Region.

As this should be a concern for all of us, the environment being an area in which the problem will always be at community level rather than individual, the responsibility should also be global. Citizens are expected to comply with the rules and ensure that others also comply with them, while should hold increased responsibility. This is where IRA will also be able to take its own responsibilities.

IRA will take action in a responsible and efficient manner, carrying out supervisory actions based on a proximity and educational approach, but also applying punitive sanctions to offenders guaranteeing that they have the intended general and special effects with regard to prevention.

Accordingly, IRA aims to ensure compliance with its ultimate goal, which will always be the constant improvement of environmental quality in the Region, contributing to its sustainable development.

Francisco Vaz de Medeiros
Regional Environment Inspector