Brazil's environment minister, Ricardo Salles, has resigned after finding himself at the centre of an investigation into the international smuggling of Amazon timber. The spotlight of the Brazilian Supreme Court fell on the staunch ally of President Jair Bolsonaro — one of the architects of the surge in deforestation rates in recent years — after US authorities discovered that unauthorised shipments of timber had been sent from Brazil to destinations across the world. Joaquim Alvaro Pereira Leite, a leading figure in Brazil's agri-food lobby, has been appointed minister in Salles's place.

The timber smuggling investigation in Brazil

Last May, Brazilian federal authorities raided the properties of environment minister Ricardo Salles, along with those of other individuals close to him. The case involves a network of illegal logging in the Amazon rainforest, with the timber subsequently exported to the United States, Europe and potentially other countries without permits from the federal environmental agency. In particular, seven cargo ships laden with undocumented Brazilian timber were intercepted: five in the US state of Georgia, one in Belgium and another in Denmark. In reality, as revealed by an investigation by Reuters, the smuggling operation is thought to be far more extensive. In the state of Pará, more than half of the approximately 3,000 officially registered timber shipments between 2019 and 2020, containing around 54,000 cubic metres of material, lacked the required authorisations.

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The Brazilian Supreme Court has now opened a formal investigation into Salles and other government officials. The environment minister is alleged to have facilitated the international smuggling of timber while simultaneously obstructing police investigations into the matter. Documents revealed that managers of companies involved in the illegal trade had met with Salles and his subordinate Eduardo Bim, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (Ibama). The two men are alleged to have eased the bureaucratic process for obtaining export permits for timber, removing a series of requirements and allowing retrospective permits issued after shipments had already taken place to be granted retroactive validity.

Ricardo Salles's role in Amazon deforestation

Ricardo Salles has not been a positive figure for the Amazon rainforest. After taking office as environment minister in the Bolsonaro government in 2019, he helped to dismantle many of the existing measures and resources for environmental protection.

The budget for biodiversity research, including the many grants that were previously awarded, was severely cut, while the work of several environmental agencies was halted. Last year Salles had a police official dismissed who had led an investigation into illegal mining in the Brazilian Amazon; at a parliamentary session he said he intended to take advantage of civil society's focus on Covid-19 to weaken environmental laws. In general, he championed unchecked development in the area, paving the way for this and other activities such as land grabbing. All the while, at the diplomatic level, the minister was full of fine words: in recent months he was Brazil's negotiator with the United States over a deal (never finalised) with President Joe Biden — one billion dollars a year in funding in exchange for forest protection that would evidently have been purely cosmetic.

Brazil's trees have suffered the consequences of the Salles approach. The deforestation rate has surged in recent years, compounding a rise that had already begun in the first half of the previous decade. In April 2021, forest clearance was 43 per cent higher than in the same month of 2020, while in May the figure recorded a +67 per cent rise, with 1,180 square kilometres of forest cover lost. It was the highest rate recorded for that month since 2007, Brazil's worst year for deforestation. In the first five months of this year there was an overall increase of 25 per cent in tree clearance, equivalent to 2,548 square kilometres.

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The now former minister Salles has declared himself innocent, justifying his resignation by stating that he did not wish to place the country in a complicated position at national and international level.

The successor and the agri-food lobby

The appointment of his successor, Joaquim Alvaro Pereira Leite, was announced immediately afterwards by President Bolsonaro. He is a figure close to Salles: he had been part of his ministerial team since 2019 and from last summer had taken on the role of Under-Secretary for the Amazon. There is, in other words, no change of course — on the contrary, a key position has been entrusted to yet another of those responsible for the difficult period currently being experienced by the Brazilian forest.

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But there is more. Pereira Leite was for 23 years a member of the Brazilian Rural Society (Srb), an organisation that defends the interests of Brazilian agri-food companies through extensive lobbying activity, also sitting on its board of directors. Soy producers and cattle ranchers are among the principal drivers of the deforestation process, through their activities, which are often illegal as well. The Pereira Leite family made headlines over a dispute with an indigenous group in the territories between São Paulo and Osasco: they are alleged to have attempted to seize the community's land, also destroying some of the local population's property. "The new minister will obey Bolsonaro's orders and continue to implement the policy of environmental destruction, just as Salles did," declared Marcio Astrini, head of the environmental group Climate Observatory.