Brazil's environment minister, serving her second stint in the role since 2023. She first held the job for five years during Lula's first terms (2003-11), during which deforestation in the Amazon fell by 80%. She resigned in 2008 in protest at large infrastructure projects in the Amazon.
Brought up poor and illiterate as one of 11 siblings on a rubber plantation. She went on to graduate from university and was elected as Brazil's youngest-ever senator.
She has faced fierce political opposition to her environmental agenda. In 2025 she was summoned before a congressional committee and subjected to hours of hostile questioning over deforestation policy.
She has fought a bill that would dismantle many of Brazil's environmental regulations by exempting infrastructure, mining and farming projects deemed to have a "small or medium-size impact" from environmental-impact assessments. In some cases developers would be allowed to judge the impact of their own works. Projects the government deems strategic would automatically qualify for simpler licensing. The World Wide Fund for Nature called it "the biggest setback in Brazilian environmental legislation in the last 40 years".
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