Page 58 - EarthHeroes

plants from the rainforest. This would allow development of the rainforest in a sustainable way – it would not harm the environment or use up its resources. The reserves would also provide schools and health centres to benefit the people who lived there.
Together with Chico, Marina led and participated in dozens of empates, preventing the building of many ranches and helping to protect thousands of acres of rainforest
and the livelihoods of hundreds of rubber-tapping families. Television
crews from all over the world came
to report on their story and, as a
result, environmentalists joined the protests, putting Brazil’s government under increased pressure to protect
the country’s rainforests. But it was dangerous to stand up to the rich landowners. Protesters were often beaten and sometimes killed. Chico himself had received many death threats.
Marina thought it was wrong that most of the country’s politicians were from rich families and cared little about the poor, so she decided to stand as a
local politician in order to speak up for them. In 1988, she was elected as a city councillor in Rio Branco. Tragically, at the end of that year, Chico was murdered by the son of a cattle rancher. He was the ninetieth rural activist killed that year. Marina and her fellow campaigners were heartbroken but vowed to continue Chico’s work. Thanks to her efforts, in 1991, the first extractive reserve was created in the state of Acre, protecting nearly a million hectares of rainforest and managed by the families who lived there. It was named in Chico’s memory.
In 1994, she was elected as a senator to represent her state in the national government – the first rubber tapper and youngest woman ever to do so. Here she continued her work to strengthen laws to protect the Amazon and encourage sustainable development. In 2003, she rose to the position of
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