'Exterminator of the future': Brazil's Bolsonaro denounced for environmental assault
Source: The Guardian
'Exterminator of the future': Brazil's Bolsonaro denounced for environmental assault
Activist and politician Marina Silva warns Brazil’s rainforest protections being destroyed but vows ‘we can’t let that happen’
Anna Jean Kaiser in São Paulo
Thu 9 May 2019 07.00 BST
Jair Bolsonaro is transforming Brazil into an “exterminator of the future”, the activist and politician Marina Silva has warned, as she and seven other former environment ministers denounced the far-right president’s assault on rainforest protections.
The eight former ministers – who served governments across the political spectrum over nearly 30 years – warned on Wednesday that Bolsonaro’s government was systematically trying to destroy Brazil’s environmental protection policies.
“We are watching them deconstruct everything we’ve put together,” said José Sarney Filho, who served as environmental minister under the rightwing presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Michel Temer.
“We’re talking about biodiversity, life, forests … the Amazon has an incredibly important role in global warming. It’s the world’s air conditioner; it regulates rain for the entire continent.”
Silva, the environment minister under Lula, said: “What is happening is a dismantling, taking education and the environment and making them ideological issues.”
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/09/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-amazon-rainforest-environment
