Chico Mendes

Francisco Alves Mendes Filho, universally known as Chico Mendes (1944 – 1988), was a Brazilian rubber tapper, trade unionist, and environmental activist. Working from childhood extracting latex from wild rubber trees in the Amazon rainforest of Acre, Mendes saw the catastrophic destruction wrought by cattle ranchers clearing the forest with bulldozers and chainsaws.

Mendes organized rural workers into the Xapuri Rural Workers Union, pioneering the *empate*—nonviolent direct action where entire families of rubber tappers, women, and children stood hand-in-hand in front of chainsaws and logging machinery to halt deforestation. He created an alliance between rubber tappers and indigenous peoples (*Alliance of the Peoples of the Forest*), proposing the concept of 'extractive reserves'—forest areas protected by the government where traditional communities could sustainably harvest rubber, nuts, and medicine without destroying the trees. On December 22, 1988, he was shot dead outside his back door by hired killers of cattle rancher Darli Alves da Silva.