David Schofield and Tom Brown 9oa

The life of Chico Mendes

Chico Mendes was born in 1942. He started work at the age of nine years old and like his father before him he learned how to extract latex from a rubber tree, instead of going to school. This was because schools were forbidden on any rubber estates in the the Amazon, firstly if the rubber tapers children went to school they would learn how to read, write and add and would eventually find out that they were being exploited. Also the fathers and business men would make more money. Chico Mendes could not read or write, he and the other rubber tapers worked all year and at the end of each year would finally make a profit but always remained in debt as they couldn’t count and were always cheated out of money. One day a man who spoke differently, he brought newspapers even though Chico didn’t know what on was. Chico was really interested in this man so his father arranged for him and Chico to go and see this man. They set off to visit this man to get there they had to walk for 3 hours along a narrow trail in the forest. The man lived alone in a little hut . the man said that he would teach Chico Mendes how to read. The man and Chico’s father agreed that Chico could take time off work to spend some time with this man.

Around twenty years later Chico had grown up he was still a rubber taper but could read, write, and add. He didn’t want to stop people touching the rainforest

he wanted the big land owners to stop cutting the land down for their cattle to walk through or cars to go through. The landowners continued to cut down the forest. One day the rubber tapers heard the chainsaws and the companies had not stopped cutting the forest down. Chico was not at all happy. He began to rebel with the other tapers. There was a huge protest and a lot of the rubber tapers were killed. Chico tried as hard as he could but the road was still built. But chico had protected a small bit of land. Chico was assassinated ten years ago but his dream for the rainforest lives on.