Legacy of Brazil's Chico Mendes at Risk 10 Years On
12/21/98
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Legacy of Brazil's Chico Mendes at risk
10 years on
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1998, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 21, 1998
Byline: Joelle Diderich
XAPURI, Brazil, Dec 22 (Reuters) - In the modest wooden shack where
Brazilian environmental champion Chico Mendes used to live, a series
of home-made signs mark the events of the night he was murdered.
Written in the first person, they recount in gory detail the last
minutes of his life. ``I get up to go to the bathroom,'' reads a sign
hanging by the back door.
Mendes barely made it down the first step before being hit by a single
shot to the chest. ``My blood explodes against the wall. 'They got
me,' I say,'' says another sign posted on a wall above faded blood
stains.
A decade has past since a local cattle rancher and his son silenced
the rubber-tapper leader Dec. 22, 1988, turning him into an ecological
martyr and unleashing a global outcry to save the rainforests.
But Mendes' legacy in this remote Amazon village of Xapuri, near
Brazil's border with Bolivia and Peru, is at risk. The tropical
community, where hens peck on the side of dirt roads under a
sweltering sun, is in disarray, wracked by infighting and survives
mostly on government handouts. Even so, the memory of Mendes is
guarded with almost religious zeal here.
In the front room of his house, which has been turned into a museum, a
pair of sandals Mendes wore the night he was killed is proudly
displayed alongside the Global 500 prize he won from the United
Nations.
``A number of people have fought for the mantle of successor to Chico,
but none of them have his courage and none of them have his
intelligence,'' said his brother Jose Alves, showing visitors around
on a recent afternoon.
Many rubber-tappers vividly recall the land invasions, led by Mendes,
during which they would stand in the path of landowners who wanted to
destroy the rainforest to provide lumber for export or to clear land
for cattle ranching.
News last week that the two men convicted of plotting and carrying out
his murder could be let out of jail for Christmas celebrations sparked
outrage. Eventually, embarrassed government officials amended prison
rules to prevent their release.
SPECIAL RESERVATIONS: A BITTER-SWEET REWARD
Much has changed for the better since the night of Dec. 22, 1988.
The Brazilian government, under intense pressure from the
international community, has created a number of so-called
``extractive'' reservations in the Amazon since 1990, including a
2.2-million-acre (900,000-hectare) area named after Mendes.
Known as extractive reservations because villagers ``extract'' raw
goods such as rubber, nuts and fruit for a living, the areas have
provided safe havens for small plot-holders to protect them from
landowners who threatened to expel them.
Xapuri residents say the reservations have restored a semblance of
order to the lawless interior of Acre, a state still largely covered
by virgin rainforest.
``It used to be that you couldn't walk around at night, you couldn't
even look (a landowner) in the face because the next day, you woke up
dead,'' said Jose Cecilio of the Association of Residents of the Chico
Mendes Extractive Reservation.
But life remains bleak for the rubber-tappers, known as seringueiros.
The value of naturally harvested rubber has plummeted under freer
market rules and a flood of rubber exports from Malaysia and Thailand.
As a result, many have given up on the century-old way of life.
``The main problem is that there is no market for our products,'' said
Atanagildo de Deus Matos, president of the National Rubber-Tappers
Association.
For many seringueiros, transporting their product to the nearest town
involves several days of trekking through the rainforest and
journeying down rivers by boat.
``Our production is a bit disorganized,'' said Matos. ``We need some
kind of protection for our product, because we harvest in native
forest and this has an environmental cost.''
Some rubber-tappers have even resorted to chopping down endangered
trees and selling the hardwood, mostly mahogany, to unscrupulous
loggers. Others, hoping for a better life, have fled to provincial
cities where they frequently turn to crime and prostitution to
survive.
XAPURI LIVES IN HOPE OF A BETTER TOMORROW
Economic activity has virtually ground to a halt in the sleepy town of
Xapuri, where most people ride around on bicycles.
The local rubber factory is running only thanks to subsidies from the
government's Environmental Agency (Ibama) to compensate the
seringueiros for a new law regulating the sector.
``The cooperative is making absolutely no profit, it is merely to keep
the activity going,'' said Rafael Pinzon, director of Ibama's National
Centre for Traditional Populations. ``The day this subsidy ends, it's
over.''
Making matters worse, rubber-tappers in Xapuri are waging an internal
feud for power.
The union which Mendes founded is at loggerheads with a faction led by
his brother Jose and widow Ilzamar. The two sides refuse to talk, much
less cooperate on projects.
Nonetheless, most are hopeful that the recent election of leftist
Jorge Viana as state governor will bring positive change. Viana, a
rainforest expert who knew Mendes, has suggested a new model of
conservation which would allow some mahogany logging.
But they know that unless he is backed by the central government,
there is little Viana can do. For some of the older seringueiros, the
days of rubber-tapping are already over.
``Who is going to continue throwing money at something that doesn't
work?'' asked retired seringueiro Luis Tarjino Oliveiro, pursing his
wrinkled face in disgust.