Wilson Pinheiro was the president of the Brasiléia Rural Workers Union in the State of Acre in Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

. He helped lead the fight against ranchers who were destroying the Amazon Rainforest

Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...

. Pinheiro was committed to defense of the Amazon and was assassinated on July 21, 1980. He was a colleague of Chico Mendes

Chico Mendes

Francisco Alves Mendes Filho, better known as Chico Mendes , was a Brazilian rubber tapper, trade union leader and environmentalist. He fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest, and advocated for the human rights of Brazilian peasants and indigenous peoples...

, the President of the Xapuri Rural Workers Union, who similarly lost his life defending the Amazon.

History

Pinheiro grew up in Acre, Brazil, a rubber-producing region in the Amazon River Basin. During the 1960s, rubber prices had collapsed to the point that many landowners were beginning to sell their land to cattle ranchers. Traditional rubber tappers were being removed from homes and evicted from their lands.

In the 1970s together with Chico Mendes, he joined the rubber tappers of the forest. The rubber tappers would stage mass demonstrations blocking logging road. In addition, they would take over logging sites by disarming guards and convincing the loggers not to continue. Frequently, they were very successful at stopping logging projects, despite resistance from the ranchers.

Individual activism

Wilson Pinheiro was a mentor of Chico Mendes and together they worked in the Brasiléia Rural Workers Union. In the early 1970s, Pinheiro became a member of the Confederation of Agricultural Workers, supported by the Catholic Church, through which he and Chico Mendes began to set up human blockades. They innovated the use chaining individuals to trees in order to prevent them from being cut down. These protests were nonviolent but had limited success. They did, however, attract international attention to the plight of the rubber tappers. Unfortunately, the ranchers responded very violently. They even used the local police to threaten, torture and kill many of union members.

Assassination

On the night of July 21, 1980, Wilson Pinheiro was murdered inside of the offices of the Rural Workers Union of Brasiléia. He was watching a television program when he was shot to death by murderers hired by the ranchers who opposed his Union. The death of Wilson Pinheiro did not make international headlines. It was, however, used very effectively by Chico Mendes as an example during his campaign to end the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest.

In the Cinema

Wilson Pinheiro was featured in the movie The Burning Season

The Burning Season (1994 film)

The Burning Season is a 1994 television movie directed by John Frankenheimer. The film chronicled Chico Mendes's fight to protect the rainforest.-Plot:...

(in Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

, Amazônia em Chamas), directed by the filmmaker John Frankenheimer

John Frankenheimer

John Michael Frankenheimer was an American film and television director known for social dramas and action/suspense films...

 and based on the book of the same name by Andrew Revkin

Andrew Revkin

Andrew C. Revkin is a journalist and author who has spent a quarter of a century covering subjects ranging from the assault on the Amazon to the Asian tsunami, from the troubled relationship of science and politics to climate change at the North Pole. From 1995 through 2009, he covered the...

. Edward James Olmos

Edward James Olmos

Edward James Olmos is an American actor and director. Among his most memorable roles are William Adama in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, Lt...

 was cast as Wilson Pinheiro in the movie. In total, the film won two Emmys and three Golden Globe Awards.

External links

• Award-winning documentary about the deaths of Wilson Pinheiro and Chico Mendes - Miranda Productions
• Award-winning biography of Chico Mendes, The Burning Season, by Andrew Revkin

See also

• Dorothy Stang
  Dorothy Stang
  Sister Dorothy Mae Stang, S.N.D., was an American-born, Brazilian member of the Congregation of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. She was murdered in Anapu, a city in the state of Pará, in the Amazon Basin of Brazil...
  
  
• Chico Mendes
  Chico Mendes
  Francisco Alves Mendes Filho, better known as Chico Mendes , was a Brazilian rubber tapper, trade union leader and environmentalist. He fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest, and advocated for the human rights of Brazilian peasants and indigenous peoples...
  
  
• Vicente Canas
  Vicente Cañas
  Vicente Cañas, S.J. was a Spanish Christian missionary and Jesuit brother, who is credited with making the first peaceful contact with the Enawene Nawe Indian tribe in 1974. Afterwards, he lived with them for over ten years, adopting to their way of life and helping them with necessary medical...
  
  
• Environment of Brazil
  Environment of Brazil
  The wildlife of Brazil comprises all naturally occurring animals, fungi and plants in this South American country. Home to 60% of the Amazon Rainforest, which accounts for approximately one-tenth of all species in the world, Brazil is considered to have the greatest biodiversity of any country on...