New Environment Minister is an ally of farmers and has family tied with dispute of indigenous lands

Bolsonaro’s administration announced that Joaquim Alvaro Pereira Leite is the new Minister of the Environment. Leite joined the government in 2019 as director Forestry Department of the Ministry, a position he held until April 2020, when he took over the Secretary of the Amazon and Environmental Services, where he was until now.

The new minister is an old acquaintance of big farmers. He was a board member of the Brazilian Rural Society (SRB) for more than two decades, an entity allied to the Agriculture and Livestock Parliamentary Front (FPA), known as the “ruralist bench” of the National Congress. According to the BBC, Leite is a member of a family of coffee farmers from São Paulo state who claim an area of the Jaraguá Indigenous Land, located in the city capital, and his grandfather is accused of being responsible for violent actions against the indigenous people who live in the territory.

In an article about the new minister, experts heard by El País expressed apprehension at Pereira Leite’s nomination and had little hope that his management will follow a different course than the previous one.