“There’s really nothing that Bolsonaro is putting on the table that makes conservationists and scientists happy right now,” says noted conservation biologist William Laurance of James Cook University in Australia. A sign of the times is the fact that Bolsonaro plans to dismantle the governmental ministry of the environment and place it under the purview of the ministry of agriculture, Bruna says. “Obviously, [these two ministries] have different teams and goals, and in fact, the ministry of the environment is also responsible for enforcement of environmental legislation,” he says. That includes things like policing farmers to make sure they’re not illegally deforesting to use the land to grow soybeans or herd cattle. “By sinking the ministry for the environment into the ministry for agriculture, it really tells you about what their priorities are,” he says. An APIB release published on October 22 asks the national and international human rights community “to stay alert, aiming for the protection of our lives as well as the rights guaranteed both by the federal constitution and international treaties signed by Brazil.”
