Brazil minister fires analyst who opposed unauthorized wood exports
APRIL 6, 2020 / 4:56 PM / UPDATED 33 MINUTES AGO
Jake Spring
3 MIN READ
BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil’s Environment Minister Ricardo Salles has dismissed a senior analyst who opposed rescinding environmental authorizations for wood exports, according to a notice published in the official government gazette on Monday.
Reuters reported last month that Brazil had exported thousands of shipments of wood from an Amazonian port over the past year without authorization from the federal environment agency Ibama.
After the issue was discovered, amid heightened controversy over deforestation of the Amazon rainforest under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, Ibama’s chief rescinded a rule requiring the agency authorize all wood cargoes.
Lifting the rule flew in the face of a group of analysts led by Andre Socrates de Almeida Teixeira, coordinator-general for monitoring biodiversity use and foreign trade, who had pushed for it to be upheld.
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