The resignation of Brazil’s Minister of Environment has been encouraged by human rights activists

Ricardo Salles, Brazil’s Environment Minister, on Wednesday resigned from his post in a landslide.

Called Brazil’s “environmentalist minister” by critics, Salles led the country’s economic growth The Amazon rain forest in the last two years.

Local journalists also said his departure was linked to the need to engage in “family business”. He will be replaced by Joaquim Alvaro Pereira Leite, who is now Amazon’s secretary and environmentalist in the ministry of environment.

Salles’ resignation comes in the middle of research state police say they are in talks with loggers to send firewood to the Amazon.

Last month, Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of investigators at home and in a bank account. At the time, Salles said “there is no reason to make a claim”.

As a minister, Mr. Salles was unprotected and could be tried by a higher court. If he or she resides outside the government, investigators may be able to prosecute.

Mr. Salles is known to be one of the closest allies with President Jair Bolsonaro and has not differed on his views or opinions.

He relinquishes his responsibilities one day after Bolsonaro thanked him on Twitter, telling Salles: “It’s not hard to be in your service.”

Cutting down trees in The state of Brazil in the Amazon has grown 67% of the last moth compared to the same month last year, according to a study from Inpe, a space research institute. In the first five months of this year, rapid deforestation rose by a quarter in the same period last year, to 2,548 kilometers.

Along with the president, Salles, a former lawyer, is known to sympathize with illegal logging crews and wildcat gold miners entering the rainforest.

Brazil is sick severe drought nearly 100 years ago, when millions are facing water shortages and the threat of power outages.

Marcelo Laterman, a climate activist from Greenpeace Brazil, said the drought was “directly linked” to deforestation in the Amazon, which last year reached its peak in more than a decade. Rainwater harvesting is a major factor in the distribution of rainfall in South America.

Scientists have also warned that the dry season increases the likelihood of wildfires in the southern rainforests and wetlands of the Pantanal, a wildlife sanctuary where many areas were burned last year.

“[Salles] monitored the decline of environmental organizations protecting Amazon. He tried to use the plague to break the laws of nature. He thwarted an investigation into illegal logging. His departure is good news for the rainforest, “Luciana Téllez, an environmental researcher at Human Rights Watch, said on Twitter.

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