Brazil’s Environment Minister and IBAMA officials investigated for illegal timber sales

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – On Wednesday, May 18, the Brazilian Federal Police launched an operation in several cities of the country to determine the degree of participation of the Minister of Environment, Ricardo Salles, and other environmental authorities, in a scheme of illegal exportation of timber to Europe and the United States.

“The participation of public agents and businessmen in the timber industry in irregularities in the timber export processes is being investigated,” the Federal Police reported, describing their “Operation Akuanduba” carried out in Brasilia, São Paulo and Pará.

The operation, which was named after a deity of the Araras Indians, who, according to Amazonian mythology, used to sound a flute to restore order when someone misbehaved, involves 160 federal agents serving 35 search and seizure warrants.

The action stemmed from a decision by Justice Alexandre de Moraes of the Federal Supreme Court (STF). It determined the “immediate suspension” of ten civil servants from the Ministry of the Environment and the Brazilian Institute of the Environment (IBAMA).

“The investigations were initiated in January of this year based on information obtained from foreign authorities giving news of a possible misconduct of Brazilian public officials in the timber export process,” the police said.

The president of Ibama, Eduardo Bim, is on the list of the ten officials whose preventive dismissal from the environmental regulatory agency has been requested by the STF. According to local media reports, Justice de Moraes also ordered the bank and tax secrecy of Salles and Bim to be lifted.

The STF order also established the immediate suspension of a federal ordinance, made in February of this year, that made the export of timber less restrictive and allowed shipment without some of the requirements demanded by law.

“It is estimated that the ordinance, prepared at the behest of companies that had unlicensed loads seized in the United States and Europe, resulted in the official registration of more than 8,000 loads of illegally exported wood between the years 2019 and 2020,” the police indicated.

PRECEDENTS

In April, the Federal Police in the state of Amazonas had asked the STF to investigate the minister for alleged interference in environmental crime audits in that region related to illegal logging of timber.

The then regional police superintendent Alexandre Saraiva called for an investigation into the conduct of Salles and other authorities in the context of an operation that seized a record 200,000 cubic meters of timber (about 65,000 felled trees). Saraiva, after filing the complaint against Salles, was removed from office.

Since 2019, when far-right Jair Bolsonaro assumed the Brazilian presidency, Salles has championed the environmental policy of the president, who fiercely defends the exploitation of natural resources in the Amazon, including on indigenous lands.

He has also implemented a series of measures to relax controls on illegal activities, such as mining and the timber trade, which environmental organizations have harshly criticized. In contrast, his supposed fight against deforestation and forest fires has been widely questioned as non-existent.