Nidhi Sharma - AHN News Writer
Rio De Janeiro, Brazil (AHN) - Brazil's environment minister, Marina Silva, has resigned her post after five years in office. While the environment minister declined to give an official reason for her departure there has been media speculation that Silva quit because of difficulties in fetching political support to protect the Amazon rainforest.
Silva, who implemented a nationwide environmental agenda to save the environment, has been at odds with the government after she strengthened laws for logging and farming in the Amazon. During her tenure, she also made tough rules for companies to obtain licenses for port, energy and transportation projects.
She opposed several government infrastructure projects in the Amazon rainforest, including two big hydroelectric dams on the River Madeira, and a major new road. She also expressed concerns when government allowed cultivation of genetically modified grains and the construction of a new nuclear power plant.
"During my trajectory, Your Excellency was a witness of the growing resistance found by our team in important sectors of the government and society,'' Silva wrote to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Wednesday, according to Bloomberg.com.
Environmental campaigners see her resignation as a major setback for the rainforest in Brazil. The 50-year-old's resignation has led a Greenpeace campaigner to lament that "Brazil is losing the only voice in the government that spoke out for the environment."
Sergio Leitao, director of public policy for Greenpeace in Brazil is quoted by the BBC as saying, "The minister is leaving because the pressure on her for taking the measures she took against deforestation has become unbearable."
Silva was elected to Brazil's Senate in 1994 and was appointed environment minister in 2003, when President da Silva won his first four-year term in office.
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