Environment Minister to tour Europe and the U.S. to Counter Brazil’s Bad Reputation

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Environment Minister Ricardo Salles promises an international tour to counter the perception that the Brazilian government is indulgent with the Amazon and favoring deforestation.

“We are going to show the world the reality of environmental preservation,” he told the blog.

Salles intends to travel in September. He wants to meet with opinion leaders and officials from European countries and the United States. His goal is to revert the bad reputation built in recent months.

The task is strenuous. In recent days, several foreign publications have alerted to the risk of reversals in environmental management. The British The Economist, in a cover story, condemned the actions of president Jair Bolsonaro and asked Brazil not to replicate the rich world, which wiped out its forests.

European leaders have publicly voiced concern over deforestation in Brazil.

Illegal mining: the minister is categorical when it comes to the regulation of mining on indigenous lands, a government proposal that has been widely criticized in recent months in Brazil and abroad.

“Nobody wants to free everything, but nothing can be done either. Are we going to continue pretending that these things [illegal mining] have not been happening in the last twenty years?”