Brazil`s environmental workers tell of decline before fires
(World News Brazil)

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) - As fires burn across the Brazilian Amazon, the vast state of Amazonas has been among the hardest hit, with more than 6,600 blazes recorded in August, 2 1/2 times more than the same month a year ago. Yet official documents seen by The Associated Press show that Brazil`s government has begun legal procedures to transfer all employees out of three of the state`s four federal environmental protection offices, which are in charge of defending the rainforest from deforestation, land grabbing and illegal fires. It`s part of a broader erosion of the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, known by its Portuguese initials as Ibama, whose field...