Som datter af en fattig gummitapper legede Marina Silva som barn i den regnskov i Amazonas, hun siden utrætteligt har kæmpet for at redde fra tømmerhuggerne og kvægavlerne – nu vil hun efter alt at dømme stille op til det brasilianske præsidentvalg igen.
Former senator Marina Silva has launched a new political party, Sustainability Network, one year before Brazil’s presidential elections, BBC online writes Saturday.
In a speech to hundreds of supporters in the capital, Brasilia, Marina Silva stressed the party’s green credentials.
Silva, 55, won a surprising 20 million votes – 19 percent of the total – in a first round of voting when she ran for president in 2010.
It is expected that her allies will follow her into the new party, but so far no other major politician has announced that they intend to join.
Little is known about the overall political objectives of the network, apart from a firm commitment to the environment.
Marina Silvas career took off while she was in former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s PT Worker’s Party, who appointed her as environment minister in 2003.
During her five years as a minister, she reinforced her reputation as a tough advocate of the environment, which eventually made her ministerial position difficult.
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Marina Silva was vocal during her time in office in blaming the deforestation of the Amazon on Brazilian cattle ranchers and farmers, writes Goldman Prize.
She unsuccessfully opposed several government infrastructure projects in the Amazon rainforest, including two big hydroelectric dams on the River Madeira, and a major new road.
Since her surprising success in 2010 as the Brazilian Green Party’s presidential candidate, Marina Silva has watched her political influence grow, even though she left the party a year later.
The child of rubber-tappers from the Amazonian state of Acre, Ms Silva was illiterate (analfabet) until the age of 14. She worked with the rainforest activist Chico Mendes, who was murdered in 1988.
Se også
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/advocates/members/marina-silva.shtml
og http://www.goldmanprize.org/1996/southcentralamerica
