Brazil's former environment minister leaves ruling party over 'destruction of natural resources'

Marina Silva is expected to make a 2010 presidential bid and put the environment back on the agenda

Brazil's former environment minister, the rainforest defender Marina Silva, has resigned from the ruling Workers' party, paving the way for a 2010 presidential bid, which supporters hope will put the environment back on the political agenda of South America's largest country.

For weeks speculation has been growing that Silva, who resigned from government last May after a dispute over the development of the Amazon region, would defect to the Green party in order to dispute the presidential elections next October.

Speaking at a press conference in Brasilia earlier today, Silva, who has been a Workers' party member for over 30 years, said politicians had failed to give sufficient attention to the environmental cause.

In her resignation letter to the president of the Workers' party, Silva said her decision was an attempt to break with the idea of "development based on material growth at any cost, with huge gains for a few and perverse results for the majority" including "the destruction of natural resources".

She added that "political conditions" had meant that "environmental concerns had not been able to take route at the heart of the government."

Silva, 51, stopped short of formally announcing a presidential bid but few doubt that she will now front the Green Party's 2010 election campaign.

The Brazilian media has been overtaken with Marina mania since earlier this month when rumours about a possible bid for the presidency began spreading. This week one major news magazine stamped Silva's photograph onto its front-page alongside the headline: "President Marina?"

Writing in the O Globo newspaper yesterday, the influential columnist Zuenir Ventura said Silva could bring a touch of Barack Obama to the Brazilian elections.

"Marina excites young people, those who are disenchanted with the current situation [and] with the Workers' Party … in such a way that she could create a spontaneous and contagious movement within society … as innovative as that which occurred in the US with Obama," he wrote.

Born in an impoverished community of rubber tappers in the remote Amazon state of Acre, Silva was orphaned at 16 and was illiterate until her early teens.

In 1994, aged 35, she was elected as Brazil's youngest ever female senator and subsequently became renowned for her staunch defence of the Amazon rainforest and its inhabitants, winning a succession of international awards for her work. The president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has not so far commented on her resignation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/19/marina-silva-resigns

Brazil's former minister resigns in environmental protest

Speculation mounts that Marina Silva is preparing a presidential bid that will drive rainforest protection back up political agenda

The protection of the Amazon rainforest could take centre stage in next year's Brazilian presidential election, after the country's former environment minister announced yesterday that she has resigned from the ruling Workers' party, raising speculation that she is preparing a presidential bid.

Speaking at a press conference, Marina Silva said she was leaving the party in protest at the "political conditions" that had meant "environmental concerns had not been able to take root at the heart of the government".

She added in her resignation letter that she was leaving in an attempt to challenge ideas of "development based on material growth at any cost, with huge gains for a few and perverse results for the majority", including "the destruction of natural resources".

Silva, who resigned last May following a row over plans to develop parts of the Amazon, has been subject to speculation that she is to defect to the Green Party and launch a presidential bid next year. While she yesterday stopped short of joining the Greens, media commentators remain convinced that a presidential bid is on the cards.

Any presidential race involving Silva would likely drive the issue of the environment and rainforest protection back to the top of the political agenda, following several years during which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been accused of letting the issue slip down his list of priorities.

Commentators are also convinced that Silva, 51, could pose a considerable challenge to Lula.

The Guardian cited the influential columnist Zuenir Ventura, who this week drew parallels between Silva and US President Barack Obama.

"Marina excites young people, those who are disenchanted with the current situation [and] with the Workers' Party… in such a way that she could create a spontaneous and contagious movement within society," he wrote, "as innovative as that which occurred in the US with Obama."

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2248165/brazil-former-minister-resigns

From maid to minister

When Marina Silva was 16, she was illiterate. She lived in the small and isolated Brazilian Amazon state of Acre, and worked as a maid and seamstress to support her siblings. Her mother and two sisters died when she was 14, and Silva herself was suffering a life threatening illness, with which she still battles today.

So how, then, did Marina Silva rise to become the Brazilian minister of environment and share the UN's highest environmental prize with the likes of Al Gore, former US vice-president and Noble Peace Prize winner?

The story of Marina Silva is well known in Brazil.

It is a remarkable rise for a woman who now is considered by many in the environmental movement as an unlikely "trailblazer".

Many politicians around the world are born into wealth, and Brazil is no exception.

But Maria Silva had no such luck.

Silva was born deep inside the Brazilian Amazon. Her father worked as a rubber tapper, extracting liquid from trees that is then a main ingredient of rubber.

Life was tough, her two sisters died six months before her mother, Silva's brother passed away when he was just seven days old.

Silva did not grow up wanting to be a famous politician, her dream was more simple.

Literal ambition

"When I was growing up ... people that worked in the government belonged to traditional families, families that owned some kind of property,"Silva told Al Jazeera in at her home in the capital Brasilia.

Silva watched her father read and was left with a feeling of amazement.

"My father knew how to read and I was fascinated when I saw him looking at a piece of paper and then speaking about what that paper said.

"My dream was to learn how to read and to become a nun and to be able to help others as a teacher, to take care of others."

To fulfill that dream Silva moved to Rio Branco, the state capital.

"When I got to Rio Branco, I started to take literacy classes in a programme for young people and adults," she said.

"I learned how to read and write in 15 days."

Political activist

Silva was then able to work her way into university, where she graduated with a degree in history. She briefly became a teacher, before meeting Chico Mendes, a famous Brazilian environmental and labour rights activist.

Shortly after meeting Mendes, Silva decided to dedicate her life to saving the Amazon rainforest.

She became the youngest woman ever elected to the Brazilian senate, where she distinguished herself as someone who fought at all costs for environmental rights.

Six years ago Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, the president, himself famous for working as a shoe shine boy as a child, named Silva as the head of the ministry of environment.

It is a position which oversees the Amazon, the world's largest forest.

Silva immediately confronted powerful logging, agriculture and corporate interests responsible for deforestation – a task few of her predecessors had dared take on.

"I cannot see my life separated from my fight," Silva said.

"I cannot see my fight isolated. I see it as an effort of many people inside and outside Brazil in the defence of the Amazon."

Silva suffered early set-backs. During her first year almost 600,000 miles of illegal highways were discovered in the middle of the Amazon.

But Silva fought on, and was eventually was credited for slowing the pace of deforestation by holding law breakers accountable at all costs, while also setting up inventive projects for sustainable development in indigenous communities.

"The Amazon forest lost 17 per cent of its vegetation in the last 400 years but the majority of this deforestation was done in the past 30 or 40 years," she said.

"That is why it is necessary to change the course of the process of development that has been happening in the region and take it into a new direction. Reduce the level of deforestation, and make a change in the model of development that has been implemented.

"We need to bring a new paradigm where the standing forest is more valuable and viable than cutting the forest for other economic activities. That is possible."

Fight for the Amazon

The United Nations has granted Silva the Champions of the Earth Prize, the highest environmental honour bestowed by the UN.

She shared the award with Al Gore and Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan.

"This is a confrontation between the legitimate interests of the present generation and the legitimate rights of future generations"

But Silva was recently reminded that hers is a never ending fight.

A recent report by the federal government indicated in the past six months Amazon deforestation has risen.

In response, Silva helped plan an ambitious and controversial federal operation to shut down the most blatant violators of the law.

However, the move resulted in thousands of poor Brazilians who rely on the logging industry for their only source of income being left without a job, especially in heavily deforested states like Para and Mato Grosso.

Critics say the environmental restrictions initiated by Silva are hampering Brazil’s economic progress and that under Silva, the ministry has been too slow to process permits for development projects in the Amazon.

Silva said: "This is a confrontation between the legitimate interests of the present generation and the legitimate rights of future generations,"

"That is why this fight for the environment is very complex. It is easier to fight for the interests of those who are here and it is more challenging to fight for the interests of those who are not born yet, who will be born in 10, 20, 100 or 1,000 years.

"That is the reason why the environmental cause is complex and at the same time it gives it legitimacy that cannot be denied, she said.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D9C60E9F-6536-4FDE-8658-304D4B8931E7.htm