ARETEIOI CANON INDUCTEE

Lived	15 December 1944 – 22 December 1988 (Gregorian) 15 December 11944 – 22 December 11988 (Holocene)
Eras active	Modern
Associated phase	Descent

Francisco Alves Mendes Filho (or Chico Mendes) was a Brazilian trade union leader and environmentalist who fought against the impact of extractive industries on the Amazon rainforest. Through his preservationist efforts, he sought greater rights for Brazilian farmers and indigenous peoples.

Reasons for Induction

• Justice Through Awareness: Mendes was keenly aware of the educational limitations that rubber tappers faced; these were intentional on the part of plantation owners to stymie resistance and free thought. When Mendes himself learned to read, he became aware of society’s widespread injustices, and passed on his knowledge by becoming a literary teacher in order to educate his community
  • Mendes could have chosen to hoard his knowledge and steer the wheels of power in his community to his own ends. Instead, he opted to share it, with immediate ramifications: the greater understanding of unjust treatment led to the formation of workers’ unions. This speaks to Mendes’s commitment to right livelihood and his recognition of interconnection
• Generational Thinker: In an Age where the realization of short-term profits dominated over long-term sustainability, Mendes opted to buck the trend. He understood that focusing on one crop was not enough to support communities and sought to transition the labor systems of seringueiros from solely rubber tapping to a holistic framework that included nuts, fruit, oil, and fibres
  • Mendes’s aims for his community beyond fighting injustice reveal the degree to which he is able to think beyond himself. Not only that, but he considers the needs of future generations; his ideas ensure that communities are strong, educated, and not caught flat-footed in crises to come. This, combined with his explicit position against monocropping, are aligned with the virtues of wisdom and justice
• Guardian of the Amazon: Mendes was instrumental in the creation of extractive reserves, publicly owned protected areas that allow for traditional, sustainable extractive practices to continue and shield these areas in the Amazon from the extractive and ranching industries. The cultures of Amazonian peoples are able to continue to thrive without threat of encroachment
  • Mendes petitioned international organizations to support extractive reserves in a display of right livelihood and justice. Such an act also reflects his understanding of the myth of an untouched wilderness and the inherent harmony or give-and-take at play between all living things
• Righteous Shield: Mendes is one of the most quintessential models of courage in recent history. Completely undeterred in the face of corporate violence, Mendes and those in the rubber workers’ union used a technique they called the empate, where they would block the way into rubber reserves to prevent their destruction. Mendes’s campaign against ranching-driven deforestation eventually led to his assassination, but his work was by no means finished
  • Mendes didn’t give any ground to violent actors in the fight to protect his community and the environment. He held strong to his convictions and was dissuaded by countless death threats — a representative case of both his courage and right livelihood, which his life exemplified