Brazil’s controversial Environment Minister resigns

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s Minister of Environment, Ricardo Salles, one of Jair Bolsonaro’s Cabinet members most questioned for positions apparently contrary to environmental preservation, and who is under investigation for corruption, announced Wednesday, June 23, his resignation from the post.

Salles, whom Bolsonaro repeatedly defended despite criticism from environmental groups and even allied politicians for his controversial positions, resigned when the Supreme Court is investigating charges against him for allegedly favoring a logging group after an operation against illegal logging in the Amazon.

In a brief statement to journalists in which he did not allow questions, Salles specified that he presented his resignation and it was accepted by President Bolsonaro. Still, he did not inform the reasons for his decision.

He stressed that he sought a “balance between economic development and the environment during his administration,” which Bolsonaro had asked him to do when he took office on January 1, 2019.

“We adopted measures aligned with the project chosen by Brazil in 2018 with the election of Jair Bolsonaro in a democratic way, which changed what the left was doing in recent years” in terms of the environment, he said.

In an apparent allusion to the criticism he received from environmental defense organizations and from several countries, Salles said that “different opinions can’t be criminalized,” and that “many of the measures that were adopted are necessary” and respond to the “change that society asked for.”

In recent weeks, Salles was between a rock and a hard place after a Federal Police officer accused him of having tried to obstruct that agency’s work against the illegal international trafficking of wood from the Amazon.

Even so, Bolsonaro insisted on defending him and, last week, once again calling Salles “one of the best ministers” in his cabinet and “one of the most loyal”.

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