Brazil: Bolsonaro's plans threaten Amazon: says experts

Brazil's far-right President-elect Jair Bolsonaro will merge the ministries of agriculture and the environment, an aide says, in a move which critics say could endanger the Amazon rainforest.

The controversial new Brazilian leader is supported by the agribusiness lobby.

A former environment minister tweeted that the move was "tragic".

"This disastrous decision will bring serious damage to Brazil and will pass on to consumers abroad the idea that all Brazilian agribusiness survives thanks to the destruction of forests," Marina Silva said.

Earlier, Vice President-elect Hamilton Mourao dismissed environmentalists' concerns about development in the Amazon, saying the government would act responsibly by managing the spread of agriculture in the region.

The Amazon region holds the largest tropical rainforest in the world and is home to plant and animal species that are still being discovered by scientists.

Most of its millions of square kilometres are inside Brazil, where under laws dating back to 1965, landowners must keep a percentage of their terrain forested.

Bolsonaro, 63, has previously suggested that Brazil could pull out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. He says its requirements compromise Brazil's sovereignty over the Amazon region.

In the run-up to the election he had suggested merging the agriculture and environment ministries, saying, "Let's be clear: the future ministry will come from the productive sector. We won't have any more fights over this."

Warned by activists that such a move would undermine the environment ministry's controls on the commercial sector, he struck a more conciliatory tone saying he was "open to negotiation on that issue".