The Burning Season: The Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon Rain Forest
“It became clear that the murder was a microcosm of the larger crime: the unbridled destruction of the last great reservoir of biological diversity on Earth.”
Chico Mendes was a rubber tapper in the Brazilian state of Acre in the remote Amazon Basin. He became a community organizer and successful environmental activist, advocating for reserves of forest where rubber could be grown in agro-forestry practices. He was murdered for his audacity to stand up against the largest forces on earth to ask for the preservation of the Amazon.