Chico Mendes

Trade unionist and leader of the rubber workers in Acre, Chico Mendes became world famous through his denunciations of the destruction of the Amazon Forest. He entered union politics in the 1960s, and during the 1970s invented the "empate", a non-violent strategy for the defense of the environment, based on passive resistance to deforestation. In 1985, he was one of the founding members of the National Council of Rubber Workers. In 1987, he received the United Nations Global 500 Prize, for his role in the defense of the environment. After suffering various death threats, he was assassinated by a gunman in the courtyard of his home in Xapuri, in Acre, in September 1988.

To know more about Chico Mendes, it is necessary to pay a visit to his home town, Xapuri. Transformed into a kind of ecological shrine since his death, the town keeps alive his conservationist ideals, and has considerable natural beauty. It has been called "the Princess of Acre" and is the background for a film about the life of its most famous son.