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Ricardo Salles, Brazil’s environment minister, resigned from the post on Wednesday in a surprise decision by activists.
Nicknamed by “opponents” as Brazil’s anti-environment minister, Salles presided over a sharp rise in deforestation in the Amazon rainforest for the last two years.
Local media reported that his departure was related to the need to attend to “family businesses”. He will be replaced by Joaquim Alvaro Pereira Leite, who is currently secretary of Amazon and environmental services at the Ministry of the Environment.
Salles’ resignation comes amid one research by federal police alleging that he collaborated with illegal loggers to export timber from the Amazon.
Last month, Brazil’s supreme court granted investigators access to their bank and home records. At the time, Salles said “there was no substance in the allegations.”
As a minister, Salles was relatively isolated from the prosecution and could only be tried by the supreme court. If he remains out of government after his resignation, investigators will be able to continue with legal proceedings more easily.
Salles was considered one of President Jair Bolsonaro’s closest ideological allies and rarely deviated from him in rhetoric or ideas.
His resignation comes a day after Bolsonaro publicly congratulated him on Twitter, telling Salles, “It’s not easy to occupy your ministry.”
Deforestation in the Brazilian section of the Amazon increased the last moth by 67% compared to the same month last year, according to data from the Inpe, the national space research institute. During the first five months of this year, deforestation increased by a quarter compared to the corresponding period last year, to 2,548 square kilometers.
Alongside the president, Salles, a former lawyer, was widely perceived as sympathetic to the legions of illegal loggers and gold miners of wild cats that permeate the rainforest.
Brazil suffers from it even worse in almost 100 years, with millions of water shortages and the risk of power outages.
Marcelo Laterman, a climate advocate for Greenpeace Brazil, said the drought was “directly related” to deforestation in the Amazon, which last year reached its highest level in more than a decade. The forest water recycling system plays a vital role in the distribution of rainfall in South America.
Scientists have also warned that the dry climate increases the likelihood of destructive fires in the southern rainforest and wetlands of the Pantanal, a wildlife-rich biome where vast swathes of territory were burned last year.
“[Salles] oversaw the weakening of the environmental agencies that protect the Amazon. He tried to exploit the pandemic to relax environmental standards. He obstructed investigations into illegal logging. His departure is good news for the rainforest, ”said Luciana Téllez, an environmental researcher at Human Rights Watch.
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