Chico Mendes inheritance / BRAZIL { 42 images } Created 14 Aug 2012
Twenty-five years ago Chico Mendes has been murdered. He was
a “seringuero” born in Amazonic forest of western Brazil and trade unionist.
Once landowners were used to kill opponents and “troublemakers”, but this time they kill a worldwide known person, a symbol that grew up as a martyr of the working class and environmental preservation.
Chico Mendes was the first trade unionist with an ecological vision. He fought for the jungle, keeping the employment of his natural not wooden resources like natural rubber at first. This attitude was crashing with landowner's interests as they were focused on burning the jungle to widen their pastures.
Chico Mendes and his people’s fight have not been stopped through this
murder. It grew up and nowadays the Brazilian state of Acre is a place with
a strong ecological vocation. Despite of many burnings and the loss of a
huge area of jungle, there are a lot of hectares now converted into “Reservas
extrativistas” (extractive reserves) where the rubber extraction activity has
been kept alive.
The forest is still an economic resource and in the city of Xapuri, where Chico
Mendes lived and died, there are some factories processing the rubber in
different ways. The “seringueros”, still alive in the forest, have changed. Nowadays they have school for their children and medical assistance in their communities, as well as all the other citizens. All this is the inheritance of Chico Mendes and his
fight.
a “seringuero” born in Amazonic forest of western Brazil and trade unionist.
Once landowners were used to kill opponents and “troublemakers”, but this time they kill a worldwide known person, a symbol that grew up as a martyr of the working class and environmental preservation.
Chico Mendes was the first trade unionist with an ecological vision. He fought for the jungle, keeping the employment of his natural not wooden resources like natural rubber at first. This attitude was crashing with landowner's interests as they were focused on burning the jungle to widen their pastures.
Chico Mendes and his people’s fight have not been stopped through this
murder. It grew up and nowadays the Brazilian state of Acre is a place with
a strong ecological vocation. Despite of many burnings and the loss of a
huge area of jungle, there are a lot of hectares now converted into “Reservas
extrativistas” (extractive reserves) where the rubber extraction activity has
been kept alive.
The forest is still an economic resource and in the city of Xapuri, where Chico
Mendes lived and died, there are some factories processing the rubber in
different ways. The “seringueros”, still alive in the forest, have changed. Nowadays they have school for their children and medical assistance in their communities, as well as all the other citizens. All this is the inheritance of Chico Mendes and his
fight.
