President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva lamented the death of the two servants of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) who lost their lives on Tuesday while fighting a fire in the Federal District area. 
Valmir de Souza e Silva and Manoel José de Souza Neto, both 65, were participants in the body’s fire brigade. Both died while trying to prevent a fire in the residential area of Tororó from reaching the IBGE ecological reserve. The IBGE direction decreed mourning of three days.
Lula provided solidarity with families, co -workers and all who are dedicated daily to the protection of the environment.
“These workers were fulfilling their mission with courage and commitment, defending our country, our biodiversity and our people,” Lula lamented, in a statement on Wednesday (30).
The president recalled federal government actions against forest fires and the effects of climate emergency, such as the new National Fire Integrated Management Policyand stated that “there is still much to do.” “We will continue to invest, seriously and responsibly, to protect human lives, the Brazilian forests and the future of the next generations,” he said.
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Near the fire region, the IBGE Ecological Reserve is located in the Gama Environmental Protection Area and deer head. The preservation of the site has the joint performance of IBGE, the Botanical Garden of Brasilia and the Água Clean Farm, the University of Brasilia (UnB).
The Minister of Environment and Change of Climate, Marina Silva, also provided solidarity with the relatives of the servers and stressed that the two servers were recognized as good and experienced professionals. “The brigade profession is very important for environmental protection and for the whole society, but it is undoubtedly a high -dangerous profession, since fire is treacherous and can even deceive the most experienced in its combat,” wrote the minister, in the Society networks.
The Botanical Garden lamented the deaths of Valmir and Manoel, who worked at IBGE since the early 1980s.
“Both were dedicated servers, with decades of public acting aimed at the conservation of the environment,” says the institution’s note.
The University of Brasilia also recalled that the reserve is critical to ecological research on the Cerrado and that the projects developed on the site formed several generations of young researchers.
“We would not have persisted and advanced without the careful, responsible and supportive work of the IBGE Ecological Reserve servers and, in particular, our brigade members. The invaluable loss of Valmir and Manoel protecting, once again, Brazil’s natural and scientific heritage fills us with sadness,” he says.
