No mincing words from Minc

The war of words (see last post) between the old and new regimes at Brazil's environment ministry (MMA) is turning ugly.

Having been accused by the former top official at the ministry, João Paulo Capobianco, of running an "excessively personalist" administration since he took over from Marina Silva in May last year, the present minister Carlos Minc got personal in return.

Speaking to the Estado de São Paulo where the original interview appeared,  Minc pointed out that even though Capobianco started out in the pressure group SOS Mata Atlântica, which fights to protect the what is left of Brazil's devastated Atlantic Forest, he had failed to give effect to new legislation criminalising destruction of the ecosystem - since rectified with a presidential decree late last year.

"He did not have dialogue either internally or externally, he didn't talk to Congress, nor to the productive sector," Minc said of Capobianco.

Minc also hit back at Capobianco's claim that the minister had failed to acknowledge a humiliating defeat for the environment with the agreement on a staged phase-in of low-sulphur diesel in Brazil. "Capobianco stayed five and a half years in the ministry and didn't manage to do anything to improve diesel," he said. "In seven months I got the deal. Now in the state capitals, buses and trucks are running on S-50 (50 parts per million of sulphur, as opposed to the current standard diesel content of 500ppm). And in 2012 we´ll lower the content to 10 parts per million. We're winning in stages."

As for the wider argument over the style of government and pushing the environmental agenda, Minc gave as good as he got from Capobianco.

"I'm doing exactly the opposite from Capobianco, who never discussed things with anyone. His intransigence ended up isolating minister Marina Silva. My administration works on dialogue. Inside the ministry, with the executive, with other areas of government and with the Congress."

Minc also criticised Minc's handling of the controversial breakup in 2007 of Brazil's federal environment agency Ibama, in which the old institution kept only its functions to enforce environmental legislation, while its former role of managing protected areas was given to a new body, the Instituto Chico Mendes - named after Brazil's foremost environmental martyr shot 20 years ago last month by ranchers in the Amazonian state of Acre.

At the time, the breakup was widely seen as a punishment by the government for delays in issuing environmental licenses, principally for big hydroelectric dams in the Amazon. Whatever administrative justification the new structure may have had (and there was a strong argument for reforming the previous cumbersome and under-resourced bureaucracy), the perception was of environmental defenders being emasculated in the government system, and a period of chaos followed the decision.

According to Minc, Capobianco "ended up creating a war between between Ibama and the Instituto Chico Mendes which we are only now sorting out. This war led to a five-month strike by Ibama."

The impression of a smooth transition following last year's resignation by Marina Silva - who has so far remained aloof from this squabble - is starting to look a little strained.

Copyright Tim Hirsch 2009. All Rights Reserved.