Photo: Wikimedia Commons. Chico rapidly became a globally recognised activist synonymous with protecting the Amazon. He travelled to the US and beyond with his message that people, like the rubber tappers and Indigenous Peoples, can live with and from the forest in harmony.
For his work organising on the ground and raising global consciousness he was awarded the United Nations Environmental Program Global Roll of Honor Award in Now I realise I am fighting for humanity. In the late s, Chico turned his attention to building alliances between rubber tappers and other forest peoples, including Indigenous Nations throughout the Brazilian Amazon.
Ailton Krenak. Photo: The Gaia Foundation archive. His love of the forest radiated from him — as he kept stopping to introduce us enthusiastically to the wonderous plants along our walk. It took a long time to reach our destination, and along the way people would appear from nowhere to greet him. He had time for everyone and was keenly interested in how they were doing. The forest provides everything we need in life — medicine right here, when you need it, for a sting and so much more!
Photo: The Gaia Foundation digital archives. In an interview for the film Voice of the Amazon , released posthumously in , Chico said:. Then, as today, the brave people who stand on the frontlines of struggles to defend the Earth face harassment, intimidation, torture and murder.
In , more than three Earth defenders were killed every week. Twenty of those killed were defending ecosystems and communities in Brazil. The reserve remains one of the largest of its kind in Brazil, protecting over 2 million acres of rainforest and giving a home and livelihood to over 10, people. Chico has also influenced many activists, academics and others from Brazil and beyond who, inspired by his work, are dedicating their own lives to the defence of the Amazon in solidarity with her peoples.
Thank you for stating so clearly the story of Chico Mendes and his importance to the history and the future of the Amazon. My sister Dorothy Stang introduced me to this great person as she had his picture on the wall in her home.
She looked upon him as a hero to the Rubber Tappers and to people trying to survive in the Amazon against enormous odds. There are many great martyrs in the forest who continue to be murdered by the greedy economic system of cattle, soybean, and lumber exploitation. David Stang. Martyr of the Amazon: The legacy of Chico Mendes. Five questions about Sustainable Development Goals and the potential role of landscapes.
How would Chico Mendes feel about the way forests are being managed in the region today? Share Tweet 0 Engagements. Kate Evans. COP26 deforestation pledges a win, but only if they are upheld. Keep fossil fuels in focus while talking forests and trees at COP26, says forestry expert. Better support for local communities can boost reforestation efforts in Ethiopia. Reducing deforestation and forest degradation, and conservation of forests at the Green Climate Fund Too much, too little, or just enough?
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Topic s : Deforestation Lessons from the Amazon. Despite a stringent ban against education for the rubber workers, Mendes learned to read and spent much of his life in sharing that knowledge with other members of his community.
He organized the plantation workers into labor unions, and brought their cause to the attention of the entire world when cattle ranchers-at the invitation of the Amazonian government-began a systematic deforestation of the precious rainforest lands that contribute a critical function in stabilizing the world climate. Mendes was the eldest of 17 siblings of whom only six survived into adulthood. They earned their living as rubber tappers, workers who extract latex from rubber trees and cure the substance for sale in the production of rubber.
The Mendes family lived in extreme poverty; both parents and children worked to contribute to the support of the family. His father suffered from clubbed feet, a painful ailment that caused serious discomfort. By the age of eight Chico Mendes accompanied his father into the forest every day to assist in the latex tapping. The pair regularly left home before sunrise.
During a typical day they walked 8 to 11 miles of trail. Along the path they made incisions in the bark of the rubber trees and attached cups to the trunks to collect the oozing latex rubber sap.
Deep in the forest the pair hunted tapir, peccary, armadillo, rat porcupine, and monkey to feed the family. In the afternoon they retraced their steps and collected the latex. In the rainforest there were no schools, and Mendes harvested latex full time by the time he was eleven years old.
After the harvest they collected nuts to subsidize their income, and between the nut and rubber harvests they grew subsistence crops.
Mendes was 17 when his mother died in childbirth. In order to survive, his father tended the family crops, while Mendes cared for the children and harvested rubber six days a week.
Life in the rainforest was both difficult and dangerous. Health services were non-existent. Although the natives treated themselves with healing plants from the forest, the tappers habitually contracted lung diseases from the irritating fumes of the fires used to cure the latex. The wildlife and the terrain were equally treacherous-deadly plants and animals lurked in the foliage. The rubber barons who owned the plantations feared an uprising over the inhumane working conditions and prohibited the workers from learning to read, in order to perpetuate ignorance.
Mendes's father was among the few tappers who could read, and he passed the knowledge on to his son. When Mendes was 12 years old he made the acquaintance of an escaped political prisoner, a communist revolutionary named Euclides Fernandes Tavora. Mendes frequented Tavora's residence for five years and learned about the teachings of Marx and Lenin, and the political history of Brazil. Before Tavora left the jungle he gave Mendes a radio, so that the boy could listen to Radio Moscow, and advised Mendes that the tappers should organize a labor union.
Initially, Mendes attempted to bring about change through a direct appeal. He sent a series of letters to the president of Brazil, describing the subhuman conditions imposed upon the rubber tappers.
He denounced the bosses, who robbed the workers and charged inflated prices for goods-a practice that kept the workers in debt. Mendes complained that tappers were forbidden from attending school. Although his letters were largely ignored, Mendes was able to bring an end to the rent assessments paid by tappers for the use of forest trails among the rubber trees. The s and late s were characterized by sporadic union violence in the regions of the rainforest, a situation that developed as the popularity of synthetic rubber surged and world demand for latex decreased.
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