In a now-infamous cabinet meeting on April 22, 2020, Brazil’s then Environment Minister Ricardo Salles alerted his peers to what he believed to be a golden opportunity created by the Covid-19 pandemic. With media attention firmly focused on the health crisis, he suggested the government should take full advantage and make a series of unpopular changes to rules and regulations, with Mr. Salles promising to “run the cattle herd” through the Amazon rainforest.
Indeed, Mr. Salles went on to issue a series of decrees and ordinances to facilitate the extraction of mineral resources in the rainforest and slacken environmental oversight. Even after intense criticism, Mr. Salles remained in charge of the Environment Ministry until the end of June, amid strong indications that he was involved in an illegal timber smuggling ring between Brazil and the U.S.
Ricardo Salles is no longer in the government, but his policies remain. And Congress is now leading the cattle herd through Brazil’s natural environment.
With the country still struggling to gain definitive control over the Covid-19 crisis,...
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