She Grew up in the Amazon, and Now She’s Fighting For Its Life

Brazilian politician Marina Silva talks with Earthjustice about the importance of addressing climate change in the wake of the 2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires. Brazilian politician Marina Silva has called for her country to move rapidly toward clean energy. Record-breaking fires in the Amazon in 2019 reduced over 17 million acres of the rainforest to ashes. As the so-called "lungs of the world" burned, former Brazilian presidential hopeful and environmental activist Marina Silva emerged as the main dissenting voice of her country’s lax environmental policies. Most recently, she’s called out the Amazon’s indiscriminate deforestation and the expansion of agribusiness. Silva won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 1996 for helping to organize rubber tappers, who make their living by harvesting latex from trees, to rally against deforestation. She served as minister of the environment in the Brazilian federal government between 2003 and 2008, and has continued to champion environmental justice in Brazil since then. In an interview with Earthjustice, Silva talks about the role of youth in mitigating the climate crisis, how to face deniers’ positions in the face of global warming, and why Brazil needs a total transition to clean energy. You spent your childhood producing rubber, hunting, and […]

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