--- description: Find out why Marina Silva is one of the 100 most influential people of 2024. title: Marina Silva: The 100 Most Influential People of 2024 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt08e3adb6382cc2a3/698a558b457a52d79dd6a2d3/time-100-2024-marina-silva.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 17, 2024 # Marina Silva by Christiana Figueres  Brazil's Environment Minister Marina Silva attends an interview with Reuters in Brasilia, Brazil March 24, 2023\. REUTERS/Adriano Machado Brazil's Environment Minister Marina Silva attends an interview with Reuters in Brasilia, Brazil March 24, 2023\. REUTERS/Adriano MachadoAdriano Machado—Reuters Deeply grounded courage and unflinching tenacity define this remarkable woman. A native Amazonian from a rubber-tapper family, Marina Silva learned how to read and write as a teen. She went on to become one of the most influential Senators in Brazil, and stood as a presidential candidate. Today, as the country’s [Minister of Environment and Climate Change](https://time.com/collection/time100-climate/6334390/marina-silva/ "undefined"), she is rebuilding Brazil’s capacity to halt rampant illegal deforestation in the Amazon, a mission that has been at the center of her political and activist life. Against the odds, she is valiantly pushing for a domestic transition from centralized fossil-fuel energy to locally generated renewable energy. Internationally, she advocates that we reconsider our limited perspectives on what protecting nature can cost and instead embrace a more comprehensive understanding of the extraordinary economic impact and value that nature offers. This summer, she will champion the concept during the G-20 summit in Brazil. _Figueres, a former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is a co-founder of Global Optimism_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6965185/marina-silva/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6965185/marina-silva/"},"headline":"Marina Silva","datePublished":"2024-04-17T11:07:43.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T02:28:01.216Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6965185/marina-silva/","keywords":["TIME100","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades","2024TIME100","T100Leaders2024"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt08e3adb6382cc2a3/698a558b457a52d79dd6a2d3/time-100-2024-marina-silva.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt08e3adb6382cc2a3/698a558b457a52d79dd6a2d3/time-100-2024-marina-silva.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2024/6965185/marina-silva/","name":"Marina Silva"}}]}] ```