Brazilian environment minister resigns

Environment Minister Marina Silva resigned Tuesday (May 13), ending an often stormy six-year term that put her in conflict with developers in the Amazon rain forest.

Silva did not say why she was stepping down, according to her spokeswoman, Jandira de Almeida Gouveia. But environmentalists called the resignation of the former rubber tapper and ardent rain forest defender a giant setback.

"Brazil is losing the only voice in the government that spoke out for the environment," said Sergio Leitao, director of public policy for Greenpeace in Brazil. "The minister is leaving because the pressure on her for taking the measures she took against deforestation has become unbearable."

A colleague of the late rain forest activist Chico Mendes, who was shot to death in 1988 in the western Amazon state of Acre, Silva earned a reputation for defying developers and setting stringent conditions for logging permits and environmental licenses.

Her positions also antagonized pro-development ministers within the government, giving rise to rumors that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wanted to fire her but feared she would gain martyr's status.

The president's office has yet to comment on the resignation.

The Worldwide Fund for Nature in Brazil said Silva tried unsuccessfully to coordinate environmental defense with health and transportation. The last straw was the government's decision to give priority to a multibillion-dollar development plan and put the Ministry of Cities in charge of its Sustainable Amazon project.

"The environmental area was relegated to no priority. She got tired of the thankless struggle," said Denise Hamu, secretary-general of the WWF in Brazil. "It's a tremendous loss for Brazil, at home and abroad."

The environment minister's rise from poverty and illiteracy in the Amazon jungle to a Cabinet ministry in the capital capped a remarkable saga that parallels the rise of President Silva, who was a factory worker before rising to the presidency. The two Silvas are not related.

Born in Acre, Silva spent her childhood collecting sap from rubber trees in an Amazon village that had no schools. She couldn't tell time until she was 14, and she was 16 before she learned to read.

When she contracted malaria and hepatitis, she received treatment in the Acre state capital, Rio Branco, staying on to attend convent school and work as a maid. She later went to the Federal University of Acre, where she majored in history, and became a high school teacher.

Her involvement in politics at the university was the beginning of a fast ride to the top.

She was named Environment Minister when Silva won the presidency in 2002.

Opinions
The recent ask for demission of Minister make the integrants of environmental movement being worried about the future. In opinion of Alcides Faria, executive director of Ecoa, “the renouncing of Marina Silva shows that Lula’s Government doesn’t have compromise with environmental question. I hope that he (Lula) doesn’t give the Ministry to a developmental hand”.

Indignant with Minister’s resigns, Alessandro Meneses, executive secretary of Rede Pantanal, says: “We lost the unique power that has fought for environmental development. Now the development for any price will command Brazil. It will be necessary a re-organization on environmental movement to confront this new stage”.
 
To Mário Mantovani, Institutional Relationship Director of SOS Mata Atlântica Foundation, “this is a new moment to environmental movement”. Montovani previews a bad future: “I don’t have any expectative about who will command the Environmental Ministry. The Government clearly shows that the environmental questions are an obstacle to development”.