EXCLUSIVE: Environment Minister calls for former president to be held accountable as she prepares to combat illegal gold miners
Former President Jair Bolsonaro faces a genocide investigation, Brazil’s Environment Minister Marina Silva said, as he prepares an operation to expel illegal gold miners from the site of a humanitarian disaster on indigenous lands.
In the coming days, armed police and environmental coverage officials will launch the first of a series of operations via planes and helicopters to deport thousands of miners, who proliferated in Brazil’s Yanomami indigenous territory during Bolsonaro’s administration, polluting Amazonian rivers, destroying rainforest and spawning. worst fitness crisis in Brazil in living memory.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recently declared a state of emergency after images of emaciated young and old were published in the region and the Sumaúma news platform revealed that 570 Yanomami babies died from preventable diseases during Bolsonaro’s term, up 29% from the last four years.
In a wide-ranging interview, Silva said Bolsonaro is held accountable. “I think he will be investigated for committing genocide,” he said. The Ministry of Justice itself is already advancing the action. “
The crisis is the first major control of Lula’s commitment to restoring the fitness of the forest and its guardians. After the January 8 coup in Brasilia at the hands of a far-right Bolsonarista mafia, it is also an opportunity for the new center-left government to manifest itself. its authority and willingness to protect the Amazon.
Silva served as environment minister during Lula’s first term from 2003 to 2006 and implemented policies that led to an 83% alleviation of deforestation in the Amazon. He said Bolsonaro had “annihilated” environmental policy, which has had a serious impact on forest dwellers and delayed the country’s goals of preserving nature and reducing carbon emissions.
The new government, he said, would only get the country with the world’s most biodiversity back on track, but would pursue even more ambitious goals. primary biomes.
This is a historic revival, of course. Since the arrival of the first European invaders more than 500 years ago, Brazil’s position in the economy has been explained through resource extraction and deepening invasions by miners and farmers on indigenous biomes and lands.
Silva said this rudimentary style of economic progression was no longer viable. “This has no future. . . No one can be an agricultural force competing on the way down. We will compete at the top, creating professional jobs and technology. “He said greater use of degraded land with complex practices and apparatus can allow Brazil’s yields to increase. “We can now triple our production without having to cut down any other trees. “The government plans to offer concessions of 20, 30 or 40 years for the recovery of degraded lands with local species, paid for through carbon credits.
Greater ambition reflects a greater sense of urgency. Climate scientists warn that the Amazon has degraded dangerously near a point of no return, after which it will no longer be able to generate its own rain and will begin to dry up. Under Lula’s previous governments, the purpose of eliminating only deforestation that is “illegal,” however Silva said that difference no longer makes sense. “This has no basis in the truth, because we are already on the verge of no return. It doesn’t matter if it’s legal; It does not replace the truth of the biome.
Born in the rainforest as one of 11 young people in a circle of relatives of rubber tappers, Silva is a combination of Brazil’s 3 main ethnic groups: indigenous indigenous people, Portuguese settlers and enslaved Africans. She worked as a maid, then entered university and has become a student and union activist. She is an associate of Chico Mendes, the environmental activist killed for his crusade to protect the Amazon, and a prominent member of the Workers’ Party, which first gained strength in 2002 under Lula.
As environment minister, her rigorous defense of nature and forest communities angered agribusiness leaders, miners and structural companies, who lobbied against her. She stepped away and resigned from Lula’s cabinet before running as the Green Party candidate. to the government and its reunion with Lula as the maximum positive news of 2022. This time, however, he said his task will be more difficult because Brazil’s economy is weaker.
The vision of conservation is also broader. Twenty years ago, the government targeted the Amazon. This time, Lula and Silva promised all of Brazil’s primary ecosystems, adding the Cerrado savannah, the Pantanal wetlands, the Atlantic Forest, the pampas and the semi-arid Caatinga.
Silva suggested other countries for the transition of the Brazilian economy with technical investment, industry and money. Germany and Norway have committed really large sums to the Amazon Fund, which was created to protect the rainforest. The UK is considering contributing. U. S. PresidentU. S. President Joe Biden has pledged billions of dollars for rainforests, but nothing has yet been announced. The EU recently enacted a law to block deforestation-related imports. products of indigenous, riverine and small farming communities, as well as guilty agribusiness. She said Bolsonaro and his colleagues would return unless the government, and its trading partners abroad, could find economic alternatives. “A transition program means solving the genuine upheavals that other people face today. “
When corporations and governments buy Brazilian products, he said, they deserve not only the environment and health, but also ethics. “It is mandatory to put a price on human rights. When someone consumes something, he will have to not believe that he is doing it to the detriment of others, as we see now with the Yanomami.
The task of Brazil’s environment minister is to plan deportation operations for illegal minors, fight tough industries, and coordinate ministries to address the root causes of environmental crises and punish environmental offenders. This requires a clever political touch, like the Yanomami. Test the case.
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The environmental hedge body, Ibama, will crack down on illegal miners, but it can’t do it alone. In past administrations, the police and army provided intelligence, an armed corps of workers, and logistical support. Today, there are doubts about his ability and willingness to help. Silva said the federal police’s environmental investigations branch had been virtually dismantled under Bolsonaro. a lot of things from scratch. “
There are also doubts about the army’s loyalty to the new government. Several generals have held prominent positions in Bolsonaro’s cabinet, and some troops in the Amazon are in cahoots with mining gangs. So far, the military has been reluctant to participate in the operations, saying the factor wants to be studied in more detail.
Instead of focusing on tensions, Silva spoke of the cooperative role the army had played beyond operations. “The armed forces have helped us a lot,” he said. The air force, he said, would be key to controlling the region’s airspace and stifling food and fuel source flights, which is the most effective way to prevent miners from returning.
Another potential dispute is over primary infrastructure and resource exploration projects, which generate short-term jobs but harm the nation’s natural health. State oil company Petrobras has accelerated its efforts to drill wells at the mouth of the Amazon River, which would be the first exploration in this ecologically coastal area. Silva emphasizes that it is a priority conservation area, according to an old decree signed by Lula. It will be a complex case,” he said.
Higher barriers will also be established for hydroelectric and water diversion projects. Brazil gets the most of its energy from dams, but prices are starting to outweigh the benefits, and there are now less expensive and more effective opportunities available. Silva will compare long-standing megaplans to move water from the São Francisco River into the arid northeast and build a cascade of dams on the Tapajós River. He said no giant structure would be allowed unless it met strict criteria.
“It’s not just about economic viability, it’s about social viability, environmental viability and cultural viability,” he said, mentioning the disastrous consequences of the structure of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in the Amazon.
Has Lula changed? His priority remains job creation, however, Silva said the president’s concept points to 0 deforestation and recently gave speeches defending wind, sun and biomass as opportunities for old primary infrastructure projects of the past. much faster,” he said. In Brazil, we have great potential to distribute green energy. . . If our energy matrix is clean, varied and safe, we can produce green energy for countries that do not have the same amenities as us. “
Silva claimed that a four-year period is not long for such an ambitious program, but said the government could build a foundation for the transition, in terms of practical measures and public persuasion, especially the other 25 million people living in the Amazon. that there is a better way to do things. ” It’s about convincing other people that there’s no point in having a profit for 10 years if the charge is to destroy something for the rest of our lives. “