Hope amid tragedy: Will slain journalist’s death spark change in Amazon?
In December 1988, when most people were out buying turkey and Christmas crackers, something happened in the Amazon that changed the way the world saw Brazil and the nascent environmental movement.
Three days before Christmas, a man was murdered in the southern reaches of the rainforest. He was a rubber tapper named Francisco Mendes, although everybody called him Chico.
Mr. Mendes had no formal schooling, but he was a born leader. When loggers threatened to cut down rubber trees to create cattle pastures, he ran to the front lines to stop lumberjacks from using chain saws and bulldozers to decimate the forest that Mr. Mendes and his community called home.
It cost him his life.
I’ve been thinking
