Walking The Forest With Chico Mendes

A close associate of Chico Mendes, Gomercindo Rodrigues witnessed the struggle between Brazil's rubber tappers and local ranchers—a struggle that led to the murder of Mendes. Rodrigues's memoir of his years with Mendes has never before been translated into English from the Portuguese. Now, Walking the Forest with Chico Mendes makes this important work available to new audiences, capturing the events and trends that shaped the lives of both men and the fragile system of public security and justice within which they lived and worked. In a rare primary account of the celebrated labor organizer, Rodrigues chronicles Mendes's innovative proposals as the Amazon faced wholesale deforestation. As a labor unionist and an environmentalist, Mendes believed that rain forests could be preserved without ruining the lives of workers, and that destroying forests to make way for cattle pastures threatened humanity in the long run. Walking the Forest with Chico Mendes also brings to light the unexplained and uninvestigated events surrounding Mendes's murder. Although many historians have written about the plantation systems of nineteenth-century Brazil, few eyewitnesses have captured the rich rural history of the twentieth century with such an intricate knowledge of history and folklore as Rodrigues.

"They would have to kill us all to destroy our movement and they can't. I don't get that cold feeling anymore. I am no longer afraid of dying."-Chico Mendes, November 1988 Chico Mendes, the charismatic founder of the Brazilian rubber tappers union, was murdered by a hired assassin on 22 December 1988. As a trade union leader, he won international acclaim for his role in the non-violent campaign to protect the Amazon rainforest, on which the rubber tappers depend for their livelihood. In Fight for the Forest, Chico Mendes talks of his life's work in his last major interview conducted just weeks before his death. He recalls the rubber tappers' campaign against forest clearances and their struggle to develop sustainable alternatives for the Amazon. In this edition, environmental lobbyist Tony Gross, expert on Amazonian affairs and a friend of Chico Mendes, follows the trial, conviction and release of Chico's assassins and examines Brazil's environmental policy under President Fernando Collor de Mello.

'Think globally, act locally' has become a call to environmentalist mobilization, proposing a closer connection between global concerns, local issues and individual responsibility. A History of Environmentalism explores this dialectic relationship, with ten contributors from a range of disciplines providing a history of environmentalism which frames global themes and narrates local stories. Each of the chapters in this volume addresses specific struggles in the history of environmental movements, for example over national parks, species protection, forests, waste, contamination, nuclear energy and expropriation. A diverse range of environments and environmental actors are covered, including the communities in the Amazonian Forest, the antelope in Tibet, atomic power plants in Europe and oil and politics in the Niger Delta. The chapters demonstrate how these conflicts make visible the intricate connections between local and global, the body and the environment, and power and nature. A History of Environmentalism tells us much about transformations of cultural perceptions and ways of production and consuming, as well as ecological and social changes. More than offering an exhaustive picture of the entire environmentalist movement, A History of Environmentalism highlights the importance of the experience of environmentalism within local communities. It offers a worldwide and polyphonic perspective, making it key reading for students and scholars of global and environmental history and political ecology.

In Fight for the Forest, Chico Mendes talks of his life's work in his last major interview.

Drawing on the experience of Projecto Seringueiro (Project Rubber Tapper), Denis Heyck reveals how a radical education experiment designed simply to bring literacy to rubber tappers in the Amazon rainforests helped the members of a threatened community to claim their political rights and preserve their cultural heritage in the face of ferocious opposition. The rubber tappers¿ story shows that grassroots communities can organize, form alliances, and advocate on their own behalf¿and that in the trajectory of empowerment, no tool is more important than that of education.

It's easy to feel powerless in the face of big environmental challenges--but we need inspiration now more than ever. In Nature's Allies, Larry Nielsen presents the inspiring stories of eight conservation pioneers who show that through passion and perseverance we can each make a difference, even in the face of political opposition. Nielsen's vivid biographies of John Muir, Ding Darling, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Chico Mendes, Billy Frank Jr., Wangari Maathai, and Gro Harlem Brundtland are meant to rally a new generation of conservationists to follow in their footsteps and inspire students, conservationists, and nature lovers to speak up for nature and prove that individuals can affect positive change in the world.

The life of Chico Mendes is the story of a humble rubber tapper who became an international hero because of his work to save the rain forest and improve the lives of those who have made a living caring for and working on it for.

A sweeping yet intimate exploration of Latin America’s political history, Forging Latin America profiles fifty-two of the region’s most influential figures—from dictators and reformers to artists and priests—who, for better or worse, have shaped its character and destiny from the Spanish Conquest to the present day.