Despite the passage of time, defenders of their lands continue to face threats, criminal charges, and murder. Indigenous peoples, quilombola communities, riverine populations, extractivists, and other traditional groups are often at the forefront of these battles.
These communities work tirelessly to highlight invasions, track deforestation, uphold sustainable lifestyles, and establish barriers against harmful expansion. This activism, however, frequently makes them targets for threats, intimidation, and deadly violence.
The rising violence in the Amacro region starkly highlights the ongoing nature of these disputes. As one of the new economic frontiers in the Amazon, Amacro sees the encroachment of agribusiness and unauthorized settlements, leading to land conflicts, violence, and killings. In 2023 alone, eight murders related to these conflicts were documented.
Multiplier
These incidents are not anomalies; rather, they signify a persistent pattern linked to unchecked forest exploitation.
Acre, the state where Chico Mendes once lived and was killed, is now prominently listed among the ten Brazilian states with the most land conflicts. In 2024, there were 59 recorded conflicts involving evictions, home destruction, threats, and assaults on communities. The violence hasn’t vanished; it has merely transformed.
When a community leader is killed, the public often views it as an isolated event. However, in many instances, these murders are part of efforts to remove barriers to illegal or aggressive economic growth. These killings of environmental defenders are mechanisms of territorial control.
The climate crisis exacerbates these issues. Water shortages, land pressures, competition for strategic minerals, expanding agricultural borders, and the increasing value of natural resources fuel local and regional conflicts.
Climate is no longer just a backdrop; it’s an escalating factor in these tensions. Thus, addressing climate policy also means addressing public security, governance, and conflict prevention.
Protection
Institutional responses remain fragmented. Environmental crimes often receive minimal attention as administrative or minor offenses. Human rights violations are addressed through separate channels, while corruption, money laundering, and organized crime are tackled in isolation. This fragmented approach fails to address the interconnected nature of these issues.
An accountability gap persists. While the law often targets local operators such as invaders and direct perpetrators, it seldom reaches financiers, economic beneficiaries, global supply chains, and companies profiting from destruction. Those held accountable usually represent only the visible aspect of the problem, leaving the economic core shielded.
This issue is not confined to Brazil alone. Global markets consume goods linked to deforestation, and investors back high-risk activities.
Companies shift impacts along supply chains, and financial bodies operate far from the affected areas. Meanwhile, local communities bear the brunt of human, cultural, social, and ecological costs.
To address this, international law and national legal systems need to advance in three areas.
First, environmental defenders must be recognized as crucial agents of climate protection and territorial democracy. This recognition demands genuine protection mechanisms and prompt investigations of threats, with the state prioritizing violence prevention. Mere posthumous tributes and condemnations are insufficient.
Biodiversity
Second, there is a need to enhance forensic capabilities and international collaboration. Tools such as satellite monitoring, supply chain traceability, financial forensics, territorial intelligence, and cross-border cooperation are essential. Without solid evidence, impunity will continue to fuel destruction.
Third, expanding economic accountability is crucial. This includes enforcing corporate due diligence, ensuring supply chain transparency, controlling financial flows, and imposing effective sanctions on those benefiting from socio-environmental violations.
The growing global discourse on ecocide, though still developing, reflects a growing recognition that significant environmental harm should not go unanswered.
In Brazil, the Amazon must be central to any serious strategy for development, security, and international positioning. This is not just because of its biodiversity but also because it embodies some of the most complex challenges of the 21st century: climate, sovereignty, organized crime, inequality, territorial and socio-environmental rights, and governance.
Destruction
Viewing the Amazon merely as an “environmental agenda” is a strategic error. It is also an economic, democratic, and security agenda.
Brazil has the technical expertise, institutions, and civil society capable of leading innovative solutions. What is often missing is the willingness to move beyond sectoral thinking and acknowledge the systemic nature of the issue.
The wars imagined by the world are those in headlines, marked by tanks, militarized borders, and formal declarations. However, the conflict unfolding in parts of the Amazon is silent, diffuse, and persistent. It emerges through chainsaws, dredging machines, clandestine airstrips, unreported threats, and bodies that remain unseen.
This was the conflict that claimed Chico Mendes’s life, and it continues to claim lives today. It may not be labeled the same, but it breeds fear, invasion, death, and territorial destruction. Ignoring it is a costly political decision for Brazil and the world.
These Authors
Angela Mendes is a socio-environmental activist and environmental management specialist. She leads the Chico Mendes Committee, which aims to preserve and promote the legacy of rubber tapper leader Chico Mendes, who was killed in 1988 while fighting for the conservation of the Amazon and tropical forests globally. The Chico Mendes Committee is part of Conexão Cipó, a coalition of ten civil society organizations from Acre dedicated to defending socio-environmental rights.
Pricila Cardoso de Aquino is pursuing a PhD in socio-environmental law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná (PUCPR) and holds a master’s degree in environment and development from the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR). She serves as the climate and Latin America coordinator at the Environmental Defender Law Center (EDLC), which is also part of Conexão Cipó, a network formed by ten civil society organisations from Acre working to defend socio-environmental rights.
