President Fernando Collor de Mello Saturday fired controversial Environment Secretary Jose Lutzenberger, whose powerful speeches condemning Amazon destruction delighted conservationists abroad but made him enemies at home.
The decision, announced in a communique from the presidential palace, came less than three months before Brazil is due to host the giant United Nations "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro."The substitution is intended to guarantee that there is only one line of thought and action in the area of environmental protection and that government policy in this area is translated effectively into concrete achievements," the presidential statement said.
It said Lutzenberger, a temperamental 65-year-old of German extraction, would be replaced on a caretaker basis by Education Secretary Jose Goldemberg, a trusted Collor ally. Eduardo Martins, a Lutzenberger appointee who headed the national environmental protection agency IBAMA, was also fired.
Goldemberg, the statement said, intended to "start a wide-ranging dialogue with all the national and international movements connected to the protection of the environment, with the aim of making the Rio Conference a success."
The dismissals follow a furious row last week when Lutzenberger accused IBAMA as acting as a "subsidiary of the timber industry" by handing out blank logging permits in return for bribes. IBAMA's entire directorate threatened to walk out unless Lutzenberger withdrew his remarks.
Lutzenberger, visibly nervous, called a news conference Thursday to deny that he planned to resign and accused opponents of starting a whispering campaign to force him out of the government. "Talk of my resignation is a lie, pure and simple," he said.