Jose Lutzemberger, 75; Pioneering Brazilian Environmentalist
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Jose Lutzemberger, 75, who was a pioneering environmentalist in Brazil and former environment minister, died Tuesday in Porte Alegre of a heart attack.
An agricultural engineer from Rio Grande do Sul state, Lutzemberger worked 15 years for a German firm selling farm chemicals. He left that business after an encounter with an apple farmer who declared that he wasn’t concerned about the health aspects of his crop because he wouldn’t be eating the chemically treated apples.
Lutzemberger founded Brazil’s first nonprofit environmental organization, the Gaucho Assn. for the Protection of the Natural Environment, in 1970. In 1987, he founded the Gaia Foundation, aimed at promoting regenerative agriculture and garbage recycling.
He was named the country’s environment minister by President Fernando Collor de Mello in 1990, and was reportedly instrumental in Brazil’s decision to abandon its quest for the atomic bomb.
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