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Foreword In the Steps of the Rubber Tapper by Marina Silva In Portuguese, saudade means longing, yearning, homesickness , nostalgia. That’s what I feel as I wander through the story Gomercindo Rodrigues tells, as I remember the moments I shared with so many other wanderers.Among them was my unforgettable comrade, Chico Mendes. Fifteen years later, we—all of us who shared his life—still find ourselves affected by his loving friendship, his simple ways, his indisputable leadership .Perhaps his greatest legacy,which we try to cultivate,is his special way of sounding out his comrades before making decisions, his tireless devotion to making alliances. Today the historic accomplishment of Chico Mendes, with his tactful style and democratic behavior, is obvious. He organized a resistance movement that established pioneering links between environmentalists and unionists, Indians and extractivists, political parties and civic organizations, Amazonian people and the world. Most important, he put together environmental and social justice issues in practice,not just in theory.The violent way his work was interrupted seems to have acted as a call to conscience for leaders and authorities. The history of Acre’s rubber tappers has since been recorded in countless articles, books, theses, films, songs, verse, and prose.These come from different viewpoints and diverse places, almost always motivated by the repercussions of the crime, in contrast to the virtues of the social movement, and the vision of the extractive reserves and the unprecedented alliance of the peoples of the forest. Gomercindo’s perspective is different.Walking the forest and the rubber estates of Xapuri, he describes scenes and moments of this history from a militant’s point of view.This is no remote or abstract account. Guma—as his friends call him—is part of the history he recounts. He testifies, denounces, doubts, investigates, complains, and advocates, almost always in the hope of changing the state of affairs. It is as if he occupied stretches and territories of his story to show, at least, his indignation. I’m very familiar with this militant anxiety to change things. I’m also part of this movement.In our activism inAcre,we are comrades.We always debate issues, and sometimes we disagree. But I recognize that it would be hard to recount such a difficult moment of our lives in any other way. Chico’s death was the dramatic conclusion of a long chapter of exploitation and violence, marked by the crimes that took from us Wilson Pinheiro, Ivair Higino, and so many others.1 Living with the communities of the Acre River valley, Gomercindo is right on track with his history of the rubber tappers. He relates the birth of the Rural Workers’ Union of Xapuri, the Rubber Tapper Project,2 the Poronga bulletin,3 the first cooperatives, and the empates4 against the clearcutting of Cachoeira5 and other estates. In 1986, at a union meeting, Big Raimundo (Raimundo Barros, Chico’s cousin) explained that the cooperatives were not working out. Guma had just arrived to help. Confronting the rubber tappers’distrust,the nighttime storms in the forest,crossing overflowing creeks, and running as fast as he could to keep up with Raimundo Tatá, a local rubber tapper,Guma had as his first task visiting estates with the Amazon Workers’ Center questionnaire in hand. With rapid steps, after recounting the rubber boom and bust and the first known act of biopiracy (70,000 rubber tree seeds smuggled to Kew Gardens in London in 1876), Guma tells Chico’s saga during the last years of his life. Looking back, I remember how the author’s bold and impulsive style seemed to complement the moderate negotiator’s style of Chico Mendes. How many times did Chico try to calm Guma by calling him to share his favorite leisure-time activity, a game of dominoes? But the author adds that Chico was afraid of jaguars.It’s difficult not to laugh at the image of a frightened Chico, still a boy, protecting himself in the forest with his little dog, which fled in panic every time it smelled a jaguar. Guma recalls the historic empate in the Bordon area.6 I was there, with Mauro Almeida, Filomena, Maria Canção, and Nande’s daughters.We succeeded in partially stopping that clear-cut. Another moving empate took place on the Cachoeira estate to stop the entry of Darli Alves, the rancher who would later order Chico’s murder.It’s good to remember that victory by...

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