In protest, Ibama’s public servants resign after termination of technical leader

After the announcement of the termination of Halisson Peixoto Barreto, national coordinator of the environmental agency Ibama’s sanctions process, the heads of the sections commanded by the Barreto resigned from their positions in protest. Barreto’s departure was a request from Wagner Tadeu Matiota, a Military Police colonel, and the new superintendent of environmental infractions at Ibama (Siam), who took office in December 2020. With the request for collective resignation, all the work in analysis, conciliation and application of sanctions of the agency was paralyzed, points out the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.

Since 2013, Barreto had been in charge of a team of approximately 300 employees, responsible for processing environmental fines. According to the specialized portal O Eco, officials of the superintendency of Rio Grande do Sul sent a letter rejecting the decision to Ibama’s president, Eduardo Bim. “The exoneration takes place in the midst of a critical moment for the administration, precisely in the area of the sanctioning process. It is worth mentioning here that Mr. Halisson has worked exhaustively in the construction and implementation of the whole environmental fines process”, says the text. Bim said he was unable to overturn the decision.

For Suely Araújo, former president of Ibama and senior specialist in public policies of the Climate Observatory, the departure of the technical leader is another episode of the systematic dismantling of Ibama provoked by the current government. “The leadership is removed, the team is demotivated, public policies are weakened. They get what they want: the weakening of the agency that ‘bothered’ them the most,” she declared to Folha.