Oceanographer José Martins da Silva Júnior blames retaliation by local businesses for his removal from Fernando de Noronha and transfer to the backlands of Pernambuco.
Martins da Silva Júnior, who has been working in the marine preservation of Fernando de Noronha for over 30 years, was recently transferred by the ICMBio Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) to the Negreiros National Forest, another conservation area in the Pernambuco hinterlands.
Colonel Homero de Giorge Cerqueira, president of the institute, justified the transfer by saying that there are 34 employees in the Noronha unit and only three in the Negreiros forest. The institute also argues that in public administration, "if there is a conflict between public and private interest, the interest of the state should prevail."
Martins blames entrepreneurs in the region for his removal. "Since the management plan was published in 2017, creating standards for the expansion of the homestays, entrepreneurs, specifically, began to buy and expand inns. ICMBio, under legal guidance , notified and fined some of these inns," he said.
"Although I do not work in enforcement, I work in land use planning, so I helped the bosses to comply with the law and pointed out cases where the legislation was broken. I believe that my removal should be related to this, due to several meetings that these entrepreneurs had in Brasilia and Fernando de Noronha with the president of ICMBio and the minister of the environment," he said.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon