INTERVIEW - Brazil's "green" chief targets Petrobras polluter

www.planetark.org BRAZIL: January 21, 2003

BRASILIA - Brazil's new Environment Minister Marina Silva says she wants to crack down on the country's record holder for environmental fines, state-owned oil giant Petrobras.

In the past three years, Petrobras (PETR4.SA) (PBR.N) was responsible for a huge oil spill in Rio de Janeiro's Guanabara Bay and was also fined 168 million reais ($50 million) for polluting two rivers in the southern state of Parana.

In 2000, its largest offshore rig sank following explosions that killed 11 crew members.

"One step being seriously considered is the participation of the (Ministry) of Environment on Petrobras' administrative council," Marina Silva, 44, told Reuters in an interview this week.

Marina Silva said that both Petrobras President Jose Eduardo Dutra and Energy Minister Dilma Roussef support the idea.

At Petrobras' headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, a spokesman noted that members of its council were nominated by the government.

Declining to comment directly on Marina Silva's comments, the spokesman said, "Petrobras is investing in projects to protect the environment."

Marina Silva, a former rubber tapper, is one of the most popular members of leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government that took control of Latin America's largest country at the start of the month.

From a poor family and illiterate until 16, Marina Silva will now try to make powerful Petrobras, the country's sole crude producer, toe the green line. Brazil is Latin America's No.3 oil producer, though still a net crude importer.

PETROBRAS PIPELINE REVIEW

A $340 million Petrobras project to build a gas pipeline through the Amazon forest from Urucu to Porto Velho may be blocked even though it was provisionally approved last year by Brazil's environmental agency, Ibama.

"We are carrying out a survey following a complaint by local people," said Marina Silva, adding that other projects by various large companies were also being reviewed.

Marina Silva said she plans to expand the Amazon Solidarity Program involving traditional Indian communities by raising its budget fivefold to 21 million reais ($6.2 million).

"We want to continue such programs involving local people - riverside dwellers, rubber tappers, Indians, coconut gatherers, fishermen - and fight hunger in the Amazon region," Marina Silva said.

President Lula has made the elimination of hunger a priority in a country where some 50 million people, or nearly one third of the population, can't afford three meals a day.

Marina Silva also wanted to include loggers - traditional targets of environmentalists - in protecting the countryside. She said that most of them didn't break environmental laws deliberately.

"There's a lack of financial resources, technical support and in some cases laxity by control agencies which encourages illegality," she said.

Environmental campaigners welcomed Silva's pledge to tighten controls on polluters.

"A seat on the board will help in planning positive changes in Petrobras," said Roberto Smeraldi, director of Friends of the Earth in Sao Paulo. "But there's a lot to change and not just in Petrobras."

Greenpeace said it had great expectations.

"When Marina Silva was a senator she showed she was a skilled negotiator, strategically involving many ministries and agencies. The environment will no longer be a side issue without funding," said Marcelo Furtado, Greenpeace's Latin American industrial pollution coordinator.

Story by Frances Jones