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- [00:00]
Zach Goldbaum
Wondry subscribers can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now. Join Wondry in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. It's July 21, 1980, in Brasileia, a border town on the western edge of Brazil. On one side there's the Acre river and Bolivia. On the other, a forest over half the size of the United States. A tropical labyrinth brimming with more than a million species. One of the planet's last true wild frontiers. The Amazon rainforest. As the sun sets, two men approach a tin roofed building, the headquarters of the local labor union. Inside is the union's tall, lanky president, Wilson Pinero. He's settling in to watch a popular detective show on a small black and white tv. The men step inside, asking Wilson for a place to spend the night. It's not unusual. Since the union was founded in 1975, it's become a de facto community hub. But on this particular evening, Wilson is cautious. He'd recently received a message that read, stay out of the way or you will get yourself killed. Wilson had come up with an effective protest strategy to stop the destruction of the rainforest, which is where he made his living. It was called an impachi, which meant standoff, and it required physically blocking roads and occupying land to stop deforestation. He'd recently convinced 94 workers to squat on a 500,000 acre plot in the jungle. The ranchers wanted to burn it down to make way for their cattle. When they attempted to evict the squatters, they failed. That night in the union hall, Wilson decides not to invite the two strangers inside. He apologizes and they leave, and Wilson goes back to watching the cop show. Fifteen minutes later, the TV detectives are in a shootout as their fake pistols go off. A loud bang reverberates inside the union hall and a real.38 millimeter bullet whizzes through an open door. That shot Mrs. Wilson, but the second and third do not. Wilson Pineiro falls to the floor, where he takes his last breath. The same night, another gunman travels to an Amazonian town called Chapori. It's home to Wilson's second in command, Francisco Alves Menges Filo, better known as Chico Mendez. The gunmen can't find Chico. Lucky for him, he's at a union meeting in another town. His life is spared, but he's not out of their crosshairs just yet. Because days later, when Shiko returns for his friend's funeral, he steps into the center of a war. From Wondry I'm Zach Goldbaum and this Is Lawless Planet. Each week, we tell a new story about the true crimes fueling the climate crisis and the people fighting to save the planet or destroy one of the.
- [03:43]
Steve Schwarzman
World'S most important environmental resources.
- [03:46]
Zach Goldbaum
Is vanishing day by day. That's Chico Mendez talking to a class of college students in Sao Paulo. He's a genial rubber tapper with a thick mustache and a little belly. Shiko says he was just nine when he started tapping rubber, a practice that involves draining latex SAP from trees to be turned into everything from shoes to tires. Kind of like a maple tree that produces syrup. The trees don't need to be cut down to generate a continuous supply of rubber. We learn to live with the mysteries of the forest, Chico says. But by the time Chico was coming of age, the biggest mystery of the forest was how long it would last. By the 1980s, satellite images were coming out that showed, on any given day, thousands of acres of the Amazon swallowed by flames. One New York times article from 1988 said, the forest looks to be at war. Now, nearly four decades later, scientists warn that we're hurtling toward what they call a tipping point. That's where the Amazon transforms from a rainforest into a dry savanna. For years, the Amazon captured more carbon than any other ecosystem on the planet. But as trees burn and the Earth warms, the forest dries out and portions are releasing more carbon than it can absorb. It creates a feedback loop that will impact not only Brazil, but every corner of the globe. What happened to Chico Mendez in the years following Wilson Pinero's death helps explain how we reached this tipping point, but it also may provide a blueprint for a way back. Can you tell us also where we're talking to you from and just describe your surroundings a little bit?
- [06:23]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
Well, I have a small farm close to Xico Mendes park in the city of Rio Branco, the capital of acri.
- [06:32]
Zach Goldbaum
This is Gumar Sindo Rodriguez, but friends like Xico call him Guma. He's a crop scientist and a lawyer.
- [06:41]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
We always come here on weekends, which is a way of putting my feet on the ground.
- [06:49]
Zach Goldbaum
What are the animals we're hearing?
- [06:53]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
Turkeys, geese, guinea fowl, which here in Acre we call kaposhi, mallards, chickens. They stay here. They are free here. They are not kept in cages.
- [07:08]
Zach Goldbaum
That feeling of being free, of being connected to nature, it's how Guma felt when he first moved to the Amazon in the early 1980s. Guma was a young political and environmental activist drawn to the burgeoning movement that Chico Mendez was leading.
- [07:26]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
For the rubber tappers. The forest is their home. I even say that the rubber tappers are ecologists in the radical sense of the term. Ecology comes from the Greek oikos home. So in fact, he's there because it's his home, right?
- [07:46]
Zach Goldbaum
Shiko's home was a vast stretch of jungle called Seringal Cachoeira. It's surrounded by more species than any ecosystem on earth. A dense canopy that blankets the forest in darkness, trees that stretch 200ft into the sky, with roots that look like flying buttresses, and animals like macaws and howler monkeys that can transform the jungle into a symphony. In a way, Serangal Cachoeira became ground zero in the war for the Amazon, one that is still being fought today. And it begins with something deceptively a road. In an old Brazilian newsreel showing giant trees being cut down and bulldozers clearing a road, A narrator proclaims the revolution, reaches the jungle, and then praises the magic of development, saying, it's the new Amazon that rises. The road was a direct result of a US backed coup in Brazil that had ushered in a military dictatorship. In 1964, the new government started a program similar to the American Homesteading act, where lucrative incentives were offered to anyone crazy enough to settle and farm inside the Amazon. The crown jewels of the program were two dirt roads, thousands of kilometers long that carved straight through the rainforest, including one that ran all the way from Sao Paulo through Chico's home state, Acre. The road ushered in the arrival of an army of ranchers who needed to torch the forest and anything living inside of it to make way for cattle. What followed was a campaign of terror. Chico says that thousands of rubber tappers homes were burned, their animals shot, women, sometimes pregnant, burned alive in huts. At the time, Shiko was in the midst of a political awakening. He was mostly illiterate until by chance, he met a political exile hiding out in the jungle. The militant taught him to read, introducing him to Marxist literature and the history of the working class. So when Wilson Pineiro organized a union to protect the rubber tappers, Shiko was armed with a political awareness that was rare for someone who'd never step foot inside a school. From that moment, says Chico, the rubber tappers began to resist. It's a muggy day in late July of 1980, just days after Chico's mentor, Wilson Pineiro, was shot and killed while watching television, the resistance had its first martyr. Rubber tappers begin to appear along the red dirt road that leads into Brasileia. They come by bus or on the backs of pickup trucks. Others are walking, having trekked for days through the jungle. 1,500 rubber tappers lined up to view Wilson's open casket.
- [11:24]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
Wilson, Piero was a great leader. With his murder in 1980, the movement became leaderless.
- [11:31]
Zach Goldbaum
That's Chico's friend, Guma again. After Wilson's death, Chico was perceived as the new de facto leader of the rubber tappers, which meant the threats only intensified.
- [11:44]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
Chico himself often said, look, if they kill me, the movement has to transform itself in 20, in a hundred, in a thousand, xiko mended so that they don't achieve their goal.
- [11:58]
Zach Goldbaum
Eventually. A man arrives who the crowd immediately knows is not one of them. The rancher whose property Wilson had prevented from being deforested. The rancher suspected of ordering the hit. Witnesses would later say that as he approached the casket, Wilson's body began to bleed. In the Amazon, it's believed that a corpse bleeds when it's in the presence of its murderer. The blood, they say, drips for revenge. Speakers take turns on the microphone. One is Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, or Lula, the head of the Workers Party who will one day become president of Brazil. He whips the crowd into a frenzy. But when Chico takes the mic, he urges calm. Chico argues that the only way for the workers to gain political power is through nonviolence. It's why Shiko was later dubbed the Gandhi of the rainforest.
- [13:04]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
Chico was a guy who knew how to listen. Because sometimes it is very difficult for leadership to know how to listen. Chico was that guy who listened. And he led in ways that people would understand and follow along, right?
- [13:23]
Zach Goldbaum
The rubber tappers relent. They decide they'll give the police station seven days to bring the suspected killer to justice. But the seven days come and go with no arrest. Chico later said when justice failed to act against Wilson's murderers, the workers decided to take matters into their own hands. One week later, Wilson's alleged killer, the rancher who showed up at the funeral, is hauling his cattle on a dirt road when he's suddenly ambushed. Killed in a hail of more than 30 bullets. The police had done little to investigate Wilson's murder. But when the wealthy rancher is killed, justice is swift. Hundreds of rubber tappers are rounded up and thrown in primitive jail cells. They're beaten. Their fingernails are pulled out during interrogations. And arrest warrants are issued for everyone who spoke at the demonstration, including Lula and Chico Mendez. Chico had expressly preached nonviolence, but now he's wanted for inciting the revenge killing. Chico goes into hiding. He spends 90 days on the run, sleeping in a different house each night. When he emerges, Chico is put on trial. He'll spend the next four years in and out of military courts. When he finally beats the charges. Brazil is at the dawn of a new era. In 1984, massive protests swept the country demanding elections. In response to the mere prospect of democracy, ranchers and farmers band together and form a union of their own, the Democratic association of Ruralists, otherwise known as the udr. They professed their devotion to tradition, family and property. But the UDR is suspected of funneling firearms to ranchers in the jungle, turning them into mercenaries and turning the Amazon into a battlefield. Genesu Ferreira da Silva started working as a ranch hand when he was just 7 years old. He's a soft spoken, skinny kid with olive skin and he tends cattle at the Panara ranch. It's a 10,000 acre sprawl of grass and dry earth on land that used to be rainforest. And it's not far from where Chico lived. The owners were a mysterious family that had arrived like so many others along the dirt road built through acre in the 1970s. And like so many ranching families looking to expand into the Amazon, they considered the rubber tappers a nuisance or worse. The patriarch was a mustachioed rancher named Darlie Alves. He'd walk around the property with a.38 revolver on his belt, backed up by a rumored 15 gunmen provided by the UDR. He was typically surrounded by some combination of his wife, three mistresses and one of his favorite 30 children, including Darlie's son, Darcy Alves. Darcy was bow legged with dark curly hair. He was born from a tryst Darlie had with a sex worker and was always treated like an outcast in the family. He was often humiliated and it made him dangerous. In a documentary, a filmmaker asks Genesu, what did he do on the farm? Killed, Ginesu replies. How many people did he kill? The interviewer asks. Nine, says Ginesu. By the time he's a teenager, Genezieu claims to have witnessed 14 murders on the Aves ranch. So how did Darli and Darcy, father and son, get away with such brazen crimes? One theory, they had protection from the udr, which allegedly kept close ties with the police and politicians. That's what Chico's friend Guma Rodriguez believes.
- [17:54]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
In fact, Darlia of his family, they were just enforcing army of a bigger project.
- [18:03]
Zach Goldbaum
A project to clear the forest for plunder and profit. And by the mid-1980s, a new threat was emerging that would bring even More violence. But instead of cowboy hats and pistols, this one would arrive with suits and briefcases. International financiers had set their sights on the jungle and were about to bankroll role a disaster. It's March 1987. Chico Mendez is far from his remote home in the rainforest. He's in Miami at the annual meeting of the Inter American Development bank, or idb. Finance ministers and central bank presidents are rubbing elbows with government officials from around the world who are lobbying the IDB for money. And Shiko is a bit out of his element.
- [19:00]
Steve Schwarzman
A meeting was held in some big convention hotel.
- [19:04]
Zach Goldbaum
This is Steve Schwarzman, an American anthropologist from the Environmental Defense Fund. He had gotten to know Shiko while working in the Amazon and accompanied him on the trip to Miami.
- [19:14]
Steve Schwarzman
We have lavish cocktail reception. There was Chico in his kind of second hand suit with the bankers and financial sector sharks of the Americas.
- [19:28]
Zach Goldbaum
Seven years after Wilson Pineharu's murder, Chico had transformed his local struggle into a national movement. Chico has a wife and two kids at home, and another child, Angela, from a previous marriage that he rarely sees. Chico has almost no time for family. He's too busy rallying rubber tappers across Brazil, organizing more unions and more impachis. And he's also caught the attention of international environmentalists like Steve, who see him as a central part of the next battle inside the jungle. Since the Brazilian government first built its destructive road project, foreign investment from the World bank had poured in to pave and expand it. Not only did the improved road require vast swaths of the rainforest to be cut down, it also meant that loggers, miners and ranchers flooded the Amazon by the truckload, bringing with them diseases that wiped out entire indigenous tribes. Steve had spent a year and a half living with the Panara tribe. He had learned their language and about what happened when the road reached their territory. The Panera called it the time when everybody died. Now the IDB is in the process of funding yet another road project. But this time Shiko wants certain protections in place.
- [20:52]
Steve Schwarzman
Shiko's point to the executive directors of the IDB was we're not against paving the road, we are not against progress. But we think it's important how it's done. He wanted to secure the land rights of the forest peoples before colonists from all over Brazil started pouring into the territory.
- [21:13]
Zach Goldbaum
Chico had a vision for the forest based around a concept called extractive reserves. The idea was large swaths of the jungle should be set aside specifically for sustainable extractive practices like Brazil nut harvesting and rubber tapping. It would one day Become Chico's legacy. But in the sterile conference rooms of the Intercontinental Hotel in Miami, the reaction was lukewarm.
- [21:40]
Steve Schwarzman
We had a very uncomfortable meeting with the Brazilian executive director and the executive director of the World Bank. All of a sudden, faced with this gringo environmentalist and a rubber tapper from Akre who want to talk about the loan to pave this road in Brazil, they were outraged.
- [22:00]
Zach Goldbaum
Why were they outraged?
- [22:02]
Steve Schwarzman
Well, they felt it was a total affront. It had not occurred to any of them to think that Chico Mendez or anyone even remotely resembling him would have something worth hearing. But he was used to being a thorn in the side of powerful people. And in reality, in much more dangerous circumstances than being at the annual meeting of the IDB in Miami.
- [22:30]
Zach Goldbaum
Shiko and Steve lay out the issues with the previous road projects and the economic opportunity of extractive reserves. And they pull off something remarkable, ultimately convincing the IDB to suspend plans to pave the road through Chico's home state. The bank also agrees to allocate nearly $10 million for safeguarding the rainforest and the indigenous people who live there. It's a massive victory. But back in Brazil, wealthy business interests see Chico as an obstacle to economic development. What's more, soon after he returns, he discovers something startling. The Alves family, the notorious ranchers known for killing anyone who stands in their way, have purchased a huge part of Seringal Cachoeira, the rubber plantation where Shiko was raised, and they're planning to burn it to the ground. With Serangal Cachoeira suddenly under threat, Shiko fans out into the jungle for days, knocking on doors of rubber tappers and mobilizing hundreds of workers who descend on the reserve.
- [23:43]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
When people found out that Darlie was going to enter the sitting gown, they would get together to make a human wall so as not to let Darley in.
- [23:52]
Zach Goldbaum
Shiko's friend Guma joined the rubber tappers from across the Amazon as they stage another impachi, this time in a fight for Shiko's home.
- [24:03]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
We knew that what they really wanted was to destroy Seringao Cachoeira, transform it into a huge farm.
- [24:14]
Zach Goldbaum
They prepare for a long stay. They string up hammocks. Shika recruits his aunt, who lives nearby, to cook for the workers. And huge pots of rice and beans simmer atop an open flame.
- [24:28]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
It was a rotating thing. People would stay there for a few days. Then a rumor would circulate. Darlie is going to go in tonight. Then everyone would run again to organize themselves to prevent Darley from going in.
- [24:46]
Zach Goldbaum
Suspecting things will turn Violent. The new democratic government reluctantly intervenes. The Federal Land Agency comes up with a solution. They'll allow Serangal Cachoeira to remain public land and offer the Alves family another patch of rainforest elsewhere. It seems like a win win, but Darli, the fearsome patriarch of the Alves family, sees it differently. To him, it's a humiliation.
- [25:18]
Angela Mendez
A band of Brazilian seringueros, rubber tappers who live and work in the rainforests of the Amazon basin, march through the forest to peacefully confront laborers clearing land.
- [25:28]
Zach Goldbaum
For ranches here in the state of Acre, in the far west of Brazil.
- [25:32]
Angela Mendez
Led by Mendes, a 30,000 strong seringueros.
- [25:36]
Zach Goldbaum
Union has been taking on the ranchers, the national government, and even the giant.
- [25:40]
Angela Mendez
Inter American Development bank, known as the IBD, for 10 years now, with great success.
- [25:48]
Zach Goldbaum
The world was starting to pay attention to what was happening in Brazil. Chico was profiled in the New York Times. He was followed by a documentary crew from the UK and between 1987 and 1988, he was honored with two international awards recognizing his activism. One from the UN and one from Ted Turner's Better World Society. Chico Mendez.
- [26:18]
Steve Schwarzman
We appeal to the American people.
- [26:20]
Zach Goldbaum
Help us to confront the multinational corporations, including American ones, that are increasing deforestation through logging. Together, we can preserve the forest and make it productive, securing this immense treasure.
- [26:35]
Steve Schwarzman
For the future of all our children.
- [26:45]
Zach Goldbaum
Translating is Steve Schwarzman, the anthropologist who had accompanied Chico to the IDB meeting in Miami.
- [26:51]
Steve Schwarzman
We thought getting media attention for Xuco Mendez internationally and then in Brazil would protect him. And it didn't.
- [27:06]
Zach Goldbaum
One night in March 1988, after Chico had returned to Brazil, he was walking home from the rubber tappers union hall. That's when he saw Darlie, the elder Alves, coming down the street. Darlie had been vocal about his intentions to deal with Chico, and here was his chance to do something. When Darlie got closer, he drew his pistol. But the group of rubber tappers who were with Chico surrounded him, making a human wall. Darlie put away his gun and jeered as he walked by. Incidents like this spurred the union to provide Chico with bodyguards. I myself have been a victim of six assassination attempts since 1977, Shiko later said. Incredibly, I survived them all. But Xico knows his luck is running out and he has to act. Around this time, Chico hears rumors about the Alves family's violent past from before they came to Acre. He decides to look into it. While he's at a conference in their home state on the other side of Brazil. Chico gets access to the Justice Department archives And that's when he finds something stunning. An open arrest warrant for Darlie Alves. At the time, powerful landowners were almost never prosecuted. But Shiko hoped his newfound fame would pressure authorities to follow up on the existing warrant. So he takes the documents back to Acre's federal police, basically the equivalent of the FBI. Chico leaves the meeting elated. It's only a matter of time, he thinks, before Darlie Alves is arrested. Then Chico waits and waits. Finally, after a judge is alerted to the case, a new arrest warrant is issued. But it's too late. Darlie and his son Darcy have gone missing. It was only later that Chico discovered that the Alves family was friends with the superintendent of the federal police who had tipped them off. At the Alves ranch, Darlie and his son Darcy hastily packed their bags. Watching everything is Genesio, the young ranch hand who had witnessed the Alves family's acts of violence firsthand. So is everything ready to end? Chico's life? Darlie says, has it all been planned out like I asked? Darci responds, everything is just like you asked. Then Ginesu sees the father and son disappear into the jungle. Shiko worries he may be living on borrowed time. So he turns his attention to his family.
- [30:07]
Angela Mendez
He received updates about me. There was an exchange of updates so that he could know how I was as a child.
- [30:16]
Zach Goldbaum
This is Chico's oldest daughter, Angela Mendez. When she was still a baby, she and her sister moved away from Chapori. They were sick and needed to be close to a hospital. Her sister died, but Angela survived.
- [30:32]
Angela Mendez
As a teenager at 17 years old. That's when this reconciliation with him happened. This need, both on his part and mine, for us to get closer. A lot of it was on his part, maybe thinking about the serious threats he received.
- [30:52]
Zach Goldbaum
When they were reunited, Chico and Angela started making up for lost time.
- [30:59]
Angela Mendez
I really like to remember what we built after this reunion, right?
- [31:04]
Zach Goldbaum
Angela remembers little things, like her dad sharing the biography of a famous communist activist killed by the Nazis.
- [31:14]
Angela Mendez
He was reading a book about Olga Benario and he said, look, I really want you to read this book so we can talk about it later.
- [31:25]
Zach Goldbaum
Shika's wife Ilzemar, was also trying to make up for lost time. Since they were married, they had never been together for more than an eight day stretch. Shika was always on the road, working. But In December of 1988, as Christmas approached, he was home.
- [31:43]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
December 15th was his birthday. We had a little party with cake for him.
- [31:48]
Zach Goldbaum
Shiko celebrates his 44th birthday with Guma, his wife Ilzemar and friends and family. They dance and sing and celebrate. Someone give Shiko a bright blue towel as a present. But Guma couldn't relax. He was worried by what he saw, or didn't see in front of the Ranchers Union headquarters in town. The Ranchers Union, the udr, had recently opened a branch in Akre. Inexplicably, they placed their office in Shiko's sleepy little town, Shapuri. And since then, there were usually two gunmen lingering in town.
- [32:32]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
When Shiko came to me, he said, kuma, how are things? And I told him, I'm worried. About what? I said, I don't see the gunmen. They are gone. I went to all the usual places. They are gone. Something is wrong.
- [32:52]
Zach Goldbaum
The next day is December 22, three days before Christmas in Chapori. Chico Mendez is sitting inside his small wooden house. As night falls, millions of Brazilians settle in to watch a popular soap opera that was airing its next to last episode. It had been announced that a main character would be killed.
- [33:15]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
I arrived at his house. It was around 6pm he was playing dominoes with two of the bodyguards who were providing his security. In that moment, his wife arrived and said, hey, I want to serve dinner because the soap opera is going to start. He said, eat dinner with me. And I said, no, Shiko, thank you. I'm worried about what I told you yesterday. I'm going to take a walk around the city to see if there is anything. He said, so go, man. Meanwhile, I'm going to take a shower and I'll wait for you so we can have dinner. Then I said, okay. I went out, got my bike and I did a loop through the city. Chapuri.
- [34:11]
Zach Goldbaum
Guma leaves. What he doesn't know is that outside, Darcy Alves and an accomplice have been camped out, hiding in the dense thicket around them. There are empty bottles of beer, cigarette butts, discarded cans of food. The two figures crawl into the darkness of Shiko's yard. They hear muffled conversation, the clicking of dominoes and the sound of a tv. Shiko is shirtless, wearing only a pair of white shorts, but he's still sweating in the jungle air. So as the others turn on the soap opera, Shiko tosses the bright blue towel, his birthday gift, over his shoulder, and he heads to the outhouse in the backyard to rinse off. Shiko turns on his flashlight and directs it into the darkness. He takes only a couple steps outside when he's suddenly blown backward by a slug from a 20 gauge shotgun fired at close range.
- [35:20]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
I didn't even Hear the shot. When I arrived at his house, his wife came out screaming. Guma. They shot Chico.
- [35:35]
Zach Goldbaum
One of the bodyguards flagged a passing vehicle. And they rushed Chico to the hospital.
- [35:43]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
I went home, got a gun. I had loaded it, put some more bullet loads. I put on a shoulder strap. And I went to the hospital to know how he was. And then I went through the hall. In the room next door, there was a stretcher. He was lying on the stretcher, just wearing shorts. With the right side of his chest all pierced by granules of lead. He was there, dead. And I say, dead. Dead. No, he wasn't dead. He isn't dead. Because if he had died, we wouldn't be here today. Talking about his story, telling the world about his story. Those who shot Chico missed the target. Those who think they killed him actually turned him immortal.
- [37:05]
Angela Mendez
When he was murdered. I had just turned 19.
- [37:08]
Zach Goldbaum
Chico's daughter, Angela.
- [37:12]
Angela Mendez
My uncle, was the one who gave me the news. And he tried to give it to me several times. Until he saw that there was no way. There was a darkness. I don't know what happened. I blacked out. One of the saddest days of my life. Even though I had tried to protect myself, thinking that was possible. But people can never be prepared enough to receive news like this.
- [37:44]
Zach Goldbaum
Chico Mendez was laid to rest on Christmas Day, 1988. Heavy rain pelted mourners. Hundreds of rubber tappers had traveled for days to pay their respects. Lula, the head of the Workers Party and the first, the future president of Brazil, speaks just as he had done eight years before. @ the funeral of Wilson Pineiro. Lula vows to continue Shiko's fight. He castigates the system that let Shiko die. And he demands justice. There was an enormous manhunt for Chico's killer. Then, the day after the funeral, Darcy Alves casually sidled up to the police station in Chapouri and turned himself in. He told police that he acted alone. His motive? Chico had been harassing his father, Darlie. Beyond that, he said nothing at all. But everyone suspected he was what they call in the Amazon. A cow for the piranhas, A scapegoat. But who was he protecting? A little over an hour after the murder, two journalists were spotted wandering the crime scene. They had come from the city, which was at least four hours away. On the rugged dirt roads of the jungle. And when onlookers asked what outlet they were from, they named the newspaper owned by the president of the ranchers union. It seemed they had been tipped off. Eventually, both Darcy and his father Darlie stood trial for murder. It is extremely rare, but the international outcry forced the government's hand. Even so, a conviction wasn't guaranteed. Then one day, a soft spoken young boy took the stand. It was Genesis, the shy ranch hand who had witnessed the Alves family's brutality up close. And even though it put his life in danger, Genesio testified that he heard the father and son plan the assassination. After his testimony, he is swarmed by the press. Reporters ask if Genesu was threatened. He says, yes, I. I was. They said that if I said something about them, they would kill me. Janessu's testimony helped secure a conviction. And on December 15, 1990, roughly two years after Chico was killed, Darcy and Darlie Alves are sentenced to 19 years in prison. It was the first time in Brazilian history a landowner was convicted of ordering such a crime. But that's where the pursuit of justice ended. After more threats and intimidation, the federal police closed their larger investigation into who masterminded the assassination. A broader conspiracy involving the UDR was never proven. And the only people that ever served time for the murder of Chico Mendez were Darlie and Darcy Alves. In the aftermath of Chico Mendes death, saving the rainforest became one of the most important causes on the planet. Paul McCartney dedicated his song How Many People? To Chico's memory. Sting worked alongside Kaiapo Indians to create Rainforest Foundation International. And Madonna organized a benefit concert for the Amazon. Every second, an area the size of.
- [41:34]
Angela Mendez
A football field is gone forever. When the trees go down, the whole system collapses.
- [41:41]
Zach Goldbaum
Welcome to Don't Bungle the Jungle. Brazil announced that it would no longer give subsidies and incentives to cattle ranchers who cleared the forests. The government created an environmental agency that keeps an eye on the country's forests, rivers and wildlife. And in the three years following his death, deforestation rates dropped by nearly 50%. But Chico's most significant accomplishment was the extractive reserves. Today there are dozens of extractive reserves in Brazil, covering nearly 30 million acres, including Chico's home in Chapouri.
- [42:19]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
I think this is a legacy that.
- [42:22]
Zach Goldbaum
Chico left for years. That legacy provided a roadmap for how to save the rainforest. But that's not where the war for the Amazon ends. There's a new boss in the land of the Bossa Nova. In 2019, Jair Bolsonaro becomes president of Brazil. With the help of what is known as the Bibles, Bullets and Beef Caucus.
- [42:46]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
Jair Bolsonaro took a call of congratulations from Donald Trump and promised to make Brazil great again.
- [42:53]
Zach Goldbaum
With this Bible as His guide, Bolsonaro's government adopts the language and policies of Brazil's old military dictatorship. He slashes environmental protections. He encourages the pillaging of the Amazon, proclaiming we can't keep living like poor people on earth that is so rich. Four years later, Bolsonaro loses his bid for reelection. Toshiko's friend Lula. Lula had been president previously and was promising to protect the Amazon, as he'd done before. Now Bolsonaro's supporters were calling for a coup. On January 8, 2023, they nearly get their wish. 5,000 rioters swarmed the Brazilian capital and ransacked government offices in an attack that resembles our own January 6th. Once investigators and journalists begin to follow the money, it becomes clear that this isn't a spontaneous act. The protests had been a coordinated operation, funded and organized by a shadowy network of ranchers and agribusiness leaders. Among them is a politician running for local office in a boom town on the western edge of the Amazon. Before politics, this man says he got rich off cattle and real estate, and he now runs a small evangelical church. He calls himself Pastor Daniel. He had been selling off cattle, leading neighbors to suspect him of helping fund the violence. On January 8, Pastor Daniel denies the accusation, but he can't be trusted. That's because the pastor is not who he says he is. Pastor Daniel is actually Darcy Alves, the man who killed Chico Mendez.
- [44:51]
Angela Mendez
Goodness. We get very outrage, right?
- [44:55]
Zach Goldbaum
For Angela Mendez, it was a sign of how much work still needed to be done.
- [45:02]
Angela Mendez
We feel the same. It's the same feeling of impunity, of injustice because they were able to rebuild their lives, right? So the killer is a prosperous farmer who became a pastor in an evangelical church. A political candidate, right? He went back to Acre and keeps getting richer. So that's always the feeling we get, that crime pays.
- [45:35]
Zach Goldbaum
And the other crime, the one that keeps paying, is the steady erasure of the Amazon. Some of the world's biggest banks, JP Morgan, Santander, Citibank, hsbc, Bank of America have continued to pour billions into projects that set the forest ablaze. From where Guma sits, the situation looks dire.
- [45:58]
Gumar Sindo Rodriguez
I know I won't see the end of the Amazon, thank goodness. But I don't know if my children, or maybe my grandmother grandchildren will. If we do not change our consumption behavior, if the planet's populations do not start to act definitively and strongly, us, us here don't stand any chance.
- [46:25]
Zach Goldbaum
It's easy to be cynical, but Steve Schwarzman prefers to think about the lasting impact of his old friend, the one in the secondhand suit twisting the arms of international bankers.
- [46:36]
Steve Schwarzman
One of the things that gives me hope is that Chaco Mendes did leave a legacy. And he is not the only one. There are many other people all across the Amazon who want to see a good outcome for themselves, for the Amazon, the forest and the world.
- [46:56]
Zach Goldbaum
What strikes me about the people I spoke to for this story, people who have suffered the most and perhaps have the most cause for despair, is that they still think we've got a chance. Angela Mendez is one of those people. Today she runs the Chico Mendez Committee, a foundation that continues her father's work. She's creating alliances among people who live in the Amazon to fight back against degradation. And she's reconnecting not just with the land, but with the spirit of the fort itself.
- [47:29]
Angela Mendez
I realized that this contact with the forest, it connects us to our true essence. When we talk about the Amazon and we talk about deforestation, we talk about burning destruction for people who don't really know the forest. Perhaps this doesn't touch their hearts and that I feel that if they had contact with this place, they would change this thinking. They would understand the true reason for protecting the forest.
- [48:10]
Zach Goldbaum
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com survey next time on Lawless Planet as the climate crisis worsens, when is it time for activists to escalate their tactics to meet the moment? We are removing destructive machinery from construction sites and we are not the destroyers. We're the property improvers. We use a lot of sources to make this show. For today's episode, we leaned on books like Burning Season by Andrew Revkin and the World Is Burning by Alex Shoumatoff, as well as reporting from Brazilian journalists from Oeko and Summa Uma. We'll include links in the show. Notes this episode of Lawless Planet was written, produced and hosted by me, Zach Goldbaum. Our senior producer and senior story editor is Derek John. Senior producers for wondery are Peter A.R. cooney and Andy Herman. Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan. Our managing producer is Sarah Kenny Corrigan. Our associate producer is Lexi Pirie. Field producing by Gabriel Uchida. Music and sound design by Kenny Kuziak. Dialogue edit by George Drabing Hicks. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez. For Frison. Sync voice acting by Paolo Conduso and Carola Parmigiano Translation by Sofia Nina Bernardis Martins Fact checking by Brian Poignant. Our legal counsel is Deb Droze. Executive producers are Marshall Louie, Erin o', Flaherty, n' Jeri Eaton and Jenny Lauerbach. Ekman for wondering. Thanks for listening. See you next week.