Brazl's Environment Minister: "I Don't Know Chico Mendes"; Will Visit Amazon For The 1st Time
Brazilian environmental groups have blasted Jair Bolsonaro’s environment minister after he dismissed the murdered Amazon rain forest defender Chico Mendes as “irrelevant”. “I don’t know Chico Mendes,” the president’s environment minister, Ricardo Salles, told journalists on an interview show late Monday night, when asked about the famous Brazilian rubber tapper, union leader and environmentalist who was murdered in 1988.
Salles oversees the Instituto Chico Mendes, which is named after the environmental advocate and oversees Brazil’s protected conservation areas.
Bolsonaro downplayed environmental concerns during his 2018 far-right presidential campaign, threatening to pull Brazil out of the Paris agreement on climate change and advocating more mining and economic development in the Amazon rainforest.
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Salles also confirmed that he would travel to the Amazon for the first time on Tuesday. His press office could not immediately clarify whether it was his first visit as minister or his first-ever trip to the region. Salles also acknowledged that regulatory “shortcomings” may have led to the rupture of a dam for mining waste owned by Vale SA, which released a wave of mud killing at least 165 people and devastating the Paraobepa river.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/12/brazil-environment-ministers-dismissal-of-slain-amazon-defender-stirs-outrage
