Natalie Hoare spoke to her about her political career, why she resigned, and how she overcame a tough upbringing as one of eight illiterate children in a rubber-tapping family.

I was born in the state of the Acre, in the western part of the Amazon. I had six sisters and one brother. My mother had 11 children but three of them died. My parents were rubber tappers, but my mother passed away when I was 14. We were completely isolated, as rubber tappers are scattered throughout the forest; our nearest neighbour was around two hours away and it took two and a half days to get to Rio Branco [Acre’s state capital] following the Rio Acre. Today there’s a road, but back then, we had to go the long way around, on foot.

At 15, I was taken ill with hepatitis, and at that time, there were no doctors or healthcare in the forest. I didn’t know how to read or write until I left home at 16 and a half. I asked my dad if I could go to the city [Rio Branco] to get proper treatment and to study, because at that time, I had a dream – I wanted to be a nun – but you can’t be a nun unless you’re literate.

In September 1975, I went to the city to find a doctor, a school and a church. I stayed at a cousin’s home and started a literacy programme for adults. I had already learnt mathematics with my father in the rubber plantations because when we sold the latex on behalf of all of the owners, we had to discount 17 per cent of the weight to account for the moisture content. Because most people were illiterate, they used to end up taking 30 or even 40 per cent off. My father taught me how to work it out so that I could do it accurately and not be ripped off.

It took me about 15 days to learn to read. The teachers were amazed. Within the next four years, I managed to complete the equivalent of primary and secondary schools, and by 1979, I was ready to go to university. I had also spent two years and eight months in a nunnery. But then I met [rubber tapper turned environmental activist] Chico Mendes and discovered liberation theology [a school of thought in Christianity that aims to bring justice to the poor and oppressed], and saw what was happening to my people. I had a strong desire to participate in the struggle for the ideals that they were putting forward and decided to leave the nunnery.

My entrance into politics wasn’t a snap decision. After graduating in 1984 from the Federal University of Acre with a teaching degree in history, I began to teach and get more involved in politics: lobbying with Mendes on behalf of grassroots communities and teachers unions, fighting for water, electricity and sewage treatment in remote communities, and leading peaceful demonstrations with Mendes to warn against deforestation and the expulsion of forest communities from their traditional locations.

In December 1988, Mendes was killed. He had led a successful campaign to prevent an area of forest earmarked for protection from being turned over to a cattle ranch. This made the rancher furious, and a few days later, he sent his son to murder Mendes. Mendes was a very close personal friend and had a big influence on my political thinking.

I served as environment minister from 2003 until May last year. When I started the job, the rate of deforestation was growing very quickly, and I knew that there was no way of reversing that process without involving the rest of the government, so we created a cross-ministry initiative [the Amazon Regional Protected Areas programme], which also involved several international conservation organisations.

By cooperating, we succeeded in reducing deforestation over three consecutive years, reaching a 57 per cent reduction. And within the environment ministry, we created 24 million hectares of protected areas, designated ten million hectares of land for indigenous populations, seized about 30,000 illegal properties and around one million cubic metres of illegally logged wood, and arrested 700 environmental criminals – illegal loggers and so on – 125 of whom were actually employees of environmental bodies.

I realised I could no longer create the right political conditions to sustain the initiatives at the same sort of pace, so I asked to resign. It was a very difficult decision but I could not stay if the measures I had set up would be removed.

I believe that all the world’s leaders are facing a great challenge that will continue for centuries, whether we want it to or not: how to develop with protection and how to protect development. In the case of Brazil, our greatest challenge is to protect the forest, because its destruction is responsible for three quarters of carbon dioxide emissions in Brazil. In the case of developed countries, the challenge is how to change the energy matrix and de-carbonise their economies.

To be effective, you must be a political environmentalist and not a politician who is also an environmentalist. In the environment ministry, you cannot take decisions thinking only about the upcoming elections and gaining popularity – you have to think about future generations.

In Brazil, everyone has equal potential. What they lack is opportunities. In my case, the opportunity was education.

Curriculum vitae
1958 Born in the Amazonian state of Acre, which borders Bolivia and Peru
1984 Graduated with a teaching degree in history from Federal University of Acre
1985–87 School teacher, Rio Branco, and lecturer, Federal University of Acre
1990–94 State deputy, Partido dos Trabalhadores representative
1999–2001 Commission for Economic Affairs and the Commission for Infrastructure
1999–2002 Commission for Social Affairs and the Commission for Education
1995–2010 Federal senator, representative of the state of Acre
2002–08 Minister for the environment

January 2009