INPE director is exonerated

In a press conference on August 1st, President Bolsonaro and Minister Salles announced a new system to monitor Amazon deforestation, affirming that INPE’s data released in June and July was incorrect. Minister Salles said that there should be more responsibility on releasing this kind of number, and that the government would open a bidding process to soon hire a daily monitoring system with higher resolution. President Bolsonaro again attacked INPE and said that the numbers published in the previous months had been “beaten up” to damage Brazil’s reputation. He regretted the fact that INPE’s director had a mandate and said that someone that passes on doubtful information should indeed be made responsible. “If there is a break in trust, he will be summarily dismissed. A break of trust, in my view, it is for capital punishment”.

On the same day, INPE responded with a public note saying that the institute works according to the “principles of excellence, transparency and scientific honesty” and reaffirming its trust on the quality of data generated by DETER, the deforestation monitoring system used by INPE. “The alerts are produced using a widely published methodology which has been consistently applied since 2004. It is widely known that it has contributed to reduce deforestation in the Amazon region when used in conjunction with inspection actions.”

The day after the press conference and Bolsonaro’s threats, the Minister of Science and Technology, who controls INPE, decided to exonerate Ricardo Galvão, INPE’s director. Galvão had been serving as director since 2016 and was supposed to remain in the post until 2020.