BRAZIL has the largest expanse of rain forest in the world, a huge natural machine that breathes in carbon dioxide and exhales massive amounts of oxygen. The Amazon region of the country has been referred to as “the lungs of the world” and just like actual lungs, it is necessary to keep them as intact as possible. Wednesday's announcement that Marina Silva is vacating her post as Brazil's environment minister strikes a blow to those seeking to preserve the Amazon and ensure its absolutely vital role in maintaining life on earth as we know it. Silva was a colleague of the Amazon's best-known defender, Chico Mendes, who was shot to death in 1988, and as something of a star in the worldwide environmentalist movement, her appointment to the governmental post in 2002 after being elected to the Brazilian senate was particularly important. She is an impressive woman who rose from poverty and ignorance to international prominence. She grew up in the rain forest where there were no schools and she did not learn to tell time until she was 14. She learned to read at the age of 16. She left her post because of what her letter of resignation called a “lack of political support” within the government. It was well-known that many pro-development ministers objected strongly to some of the measures that she has taken to protect the rain forest, and she has very much been in the sites of corporate interests and ranchers on intent burning, leveling, mining, poisoning and ultimately destroying the rain forest for the sake of profits. One has to wonder what direction the indispensable protection of the rain forest in Brazil will now take. The recent enforcement of Brazilian environmental laws has been encouraging, but with Silva gone, reactionary business forces are likely to reign once again. The record of Brazil's enforcement of its own laws is abysmal. No matter the economic indicators, the country is mired in poverty. A small oligarch controls the vast majority of the nation's wealth and the government is riddled with corruption. Indeed, this is a country whose second largest city, Rio de Janeiro, was shut down just a few years ago by drug gangs in a show of power when police stepped up pressure on their activities. It is more than just a little frightening that this is the country the world must rely on to keep our eco
