Francisco Alves Mendes Filho, better known as Chico Mendes (December 15, 1944 – December 22, 1988), was a Brazilian rubber tapper, trade union leader and environmentalist. He fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest, and advocated for the human rights of Brazilian peasants and indigenous peoples. He was assassinated by a rancher on December 22, 1988.
The Chico Mendes Institute for Conservation of Biodiversity (Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade), a body under the jurisdiction of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, is named in his honor.
To save the rainforest, Chico Mendes and the rubber workers union asked the government to set up reserves as they wanted people to use the forest without damaging it. They also used a very effective technique they called the 'empate' where rubber tappers blocked the way into rubber reserves, preventing their destruction. Mendes also played a central role in the creation of the National Council of Rubber Tappers in the mid-1980s. Mendes' group also had strong ties with the National Campaign for the Defense and Development of the Amazon, and helped locally organize Workers' Party support.
WHO WAS CHICO MENDES ?
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When the first meeting of this new union was held in 1985, in the capital Brasilia, rubber tappers from all over the country came. The discussion expanded from the threats to their own livelihoods to the larger issues of deforestation, road paving, and cattle ranching. The meeting also had the effect of catching the attention of the international environmentalist movement, and highlighting their plight to a larger audience.
Mendes believed that relying on rubber tapping alone was not sustainable, and that the seringueiros (Rubber Tappers) needed to develop more holistic, cooperative systems that used a variety of forest products, such as nuts, fruit, oil, and fibers; and that they needed to focus on building strong communities with quality education for their children.
In March 1987, the Environmental Defense Fund and National Wildlife Federation flew Mendes to Washington, D.C. in an attempt to convince the Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank, and U.S. Congress to support the creation of extractive reserves.
Mendes won several awards for his work, including the United Nations Environmental Program Global 500 Roll of Honor Award in 1987, and the National Wildlife Federation's National Conservation Achievement Award in 1988.
In December 1988, he was brutally murdered at his home and ended up dying in his family arms. His murder got attention from the whole media, even internationally.
In 2013 a species of bird, Chico's tyrannulet (Zimmerius chicomendesi), was named after him.
SERINGAL CACHOEIRA COMMUNITY
The Seringal Cachoeira Community is settled within the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve, that reaches 930 thousand hectares in Acre, as big as . There are 10 thousand people living out of native products collected in the forest at the Reserve.
Created two years after Chico's death, the Extractive Reserve is designed to embrace a sustainable development as well as Natural Resources preservation, both done by the traditional communities of the forest.
Chico Mendes' Dream
EXTRACTIVE RESERVE
A SIMPLE CONCEPT
EXTRACTIVIST
ECONOMY
INCOME FOR TRADITIONAL FAMILIES
FOREST
PRESERVATION
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{ RESEARCH FOOTAGE }
A BALANCED WAY OF LIVING
38 families lives at Seringal Cachoeira. In a conscious and balanced way, this traditional community lives in communion with the Forest. Based on an Extractivist Economy, the natives keep the forest alive and standing still since it's the only way to perpetuate their source of income.
Every year, the community extracts from the Reserve:
RUBBER
BRAZILIAN NUTS
FOREST SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT
VEGETAL OILS AND EXTRACTS
EXOTIC FRUITS
SERINGAL CACHOEIRA'S
MAIN INCOME SOURCES
BRAZILIAN NUTS CANS
30 THOUSAND
OF RUBBER
30 TONS
MAKING MORE THAN
R$1 MILLION
PER YEAR
documentary 80min
WHAT IS IT ABOUT ?
A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT CHICO MENDES' LEGACY.
WE'LL FOLLOW THE DAILY LIVES AT THE RESERVE SERINGAL CACHOEIRA, A COMMUNITY DEEP IN THE AMAZON FOREST, THE PLACE WHERE CHICO MENDES WAS RAISED.
BY GETTING CLOSE TO THE RUBBER TAPPER'S FAMILIES, IT WILL BE ABLE TO WITNESS THE IMPACT OF ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT BRAZILIAN AMBIENTALIST'S FIGHT AND HOW IT UNFOLDED.
CHICO MENDES PLANTED A SEED AND HIS BRUTAL MURDER TURNED OUT TO SPROUT THIS SEED AND TRANSFORMED THE REALITY OF LOCAL PEOPLE IN A SPECIAL WAY.
What turned out to be the lives of the rubber tappers
30
years after his death?
FOREST PEOPLE
"At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realise I am fighting for humanity."
Chico Mendes