The Amazon Rainforest covers 2.1 million square miles in South America, spanning territory owned by nine different countries. It’s what people think of when they talk about the ’world’s lungs,’ and it hosts an incredibly important concentration of the world’s biodiversity and is a crucial carbon sink. It’s also being systematically destroyed, through means both legal and otherwise.
VICE traveled to the Brazilian Amazon as the latest part of its Toxic series. The trip was spurred by the murder of married environmental activists Zé Cláudio Ribeiro and Maria do Espirito Santo, who were shot outside their home of the northern Brazilian state of Para. In a sad twist, their May 24, 2011 murder happened the same day the Brazilian Parliament passed legislation decreasing logging restrictions in the country’s Forest Code.
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A month later we traveled to Zé Cláudio’s hometown of Marabá, which was once in the middle of the rainforest and is now surrounded by miles and miles of clearcut cattle land. As the investigation into Zé and Maria’s murders went nowhere, we drove into the forest to the site of the killings, followed the heavily armed men of Brazil’s environmental protection agency as they busted up illegal timber mills, visited the militant squatters of Brazil’s Landless Movement, met modern day slaves, and marveled at the lawless, violent atmosphere that permeates the town locals call Marabála (that means Mara-bullets).
Enjoy the video (or just try to not get too depressed) and read VICE’s story on Zé Cláudio and Maria’s murder.
By Derek Mead
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