Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Environment minister’s resignation for health reasons: AMLO

The minister of environment and natural resources has resigned for health reasons, President López Obrador confirmed Wednesday.

“He is an honest person, a first-rate professional, but he is in poor health; moreover, public activity and public service produce stress,” said the president of Víctor Manuel Toledo.

“Before I thought that stress was a delicacy of the petty bourgeoisie, but no, it does exist, and not all of us are made to withstand pressure,” López Obrador said, praising Toledo as a person “of the first order, I would say the most cultured ecologist-environmentalists in the country.” 

The president said that health concerns had long weighed on Toledo who had presented his resignation before a recording surfaced last month in which he criticized the López Obrador administration.

Welfare Minister María Luisa Albores will serve in Toledo’s stead, and Deputy Welfare Minister Javier May will assume her role, the president said. 

Toledo, who is 74, had suffered two heart attacks before he was named minister of the environment in May 2019. 

In his final act as minister, Toledo announced yesterday that López Obrador will publish a decree to establish the gradual prohibition of glyphosate and 80 other chemical agents as well as the banning of genetically modified corn. 

“I believe this will mark a watershed in the environmental history of the country,” Toledo said.

The glyphosate ban has been a hard-fought victory for Toledo and put him at odds with the Ministry of Agriculture. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the Monsanto product Roundup and studies have showm it to be a carcinogen which is also harmful to pollinators.

Rumors of Toledo’s imminent departure were rampant in recent weeks, and sources close to the president said his resignation was linked to a recording dating back to March in which Toledo said the government was full of “brutal contradictions,” lacked clear objectives, and that the environmental views of some cabinet ministers and the president were inconsistent with those of the ministry he headed.

Toledo had also criticized the environmental impact of the Mayan Train, one of López Obrador’s legacy projects.

Toledo said he would return to academia and his role as a researcher in the field of political ecology at the National Autonomous University (UNAM). López Obrador said he will continue to consult Toledo on environmental matters.

Source: Reforma (sp)
A crowd of migrants with backpacks wait in front of a wall reading "INM Secretaría de Gobernación," representing the reason why Mexico had to increase the INM budget

Immigration agency sees nearly 500% budget increase in preparation for Trump deportees

0
The government's immigration institute has had its budget quintupled as it prepares for a wave of deportees from the U.S.
A memorial at the site of the fatal bus crash in Campeche.

Bus accident in Campeche kills 41

0
Officials from the neighboring state of Tabasco said recovery work is continuing, including efforts to identify those killed in the crash.
México state authorities close a barbershop in an anti-crime raid

Anti-crime sweep shutters over 300 barbershops in México state

1
Hundreds of hair stylists marched in protest in the capital on Monday, alleging that security agents planted drugs in their establishments to justify the closures.