Word: silva
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...overly ideological decisions have held Brazil back," said Assuero Doca Veronez, a cattle rancher in Silva's home state of Acre and the Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock Farming's environmental spokesman. "Her aim was to stop the agricultural frontier advancing. The country could have been growing faster if she had been more flexible...
...what is being interpreted as the final straw, a long-awaited Amazon development plan was finally announced last week, not in its original form, but in a version Greenpeace called "light." To add insult to injury, Lula embarrassed Silva by handing control of the plan to Mangabeira Unger, the Special Minister for Strategic Affairs...
...Silva did have some success in what is a notoriously thankless brief. Her presence gave the ministry a credibility and visibility it had previously lacked, and she did well to slash deforestation to the same level as it had been in the early 1990s, and to convince Lula to set aside 12 million hectares as protected areas, 50 percent more than the previous government...
...Veronez and his allies are betting that Silva's replacement will have no more power than she did. The man who has accepted Lula's invitation to replace her is Carlos Minc, until Wednesday the environment secretary in Rio de Janeiro state. Minc is respected as a true believer, even winning a UN prize in 1989 as one of 500 notable green campaigners...
...respect won't save the Amazon; after all, few people were more respected than Silva. And after five and a half years of sticking her finger in holes, she eventually decided enough was enough. If Minc is to stand any chance of succeeding where Silva failed, then his presence in Brasilia will have to be more than symbolic. Nothing suggests it will...