AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We end today’s show looking at Brazil, where former President Jair Bolsonaro has been arrested after he tampered with his ankle monitor while under house arrest, the arrest ordered by Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes over fears Bolsonaro would attempt to escape his compound, days before he was due to head to prison. In September, Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison for plotting a military coup against Brazil’s current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro served as president of Brazil from 2019 to ’23. During this time, deforestation of the Amazon increased by 75%.

Well, we turn now to Angela Mendes, the daughter of the late Brazilian rubber tapper, labor leader Chico Mendes, who was assassinated by ranchers decades ago, in December 1988. Chico Mendes worked for years to preserve the Amazon and to protect the rights of Brazilians living in poverty and Indigenous people. Angela lives near where her father was born and raised, in the northwestern Brazilian state of Acre. I spoke to her last week at the U.N. climate talks when we were in Belém, Brazil, and I began by asking her about her father’s legacy and what led to his assassination, December 1988.

ANGELA MENDES: [translated] My father, during all his life, he fought for the rights of his companions, his friends and the peoples of the forests, for a long time. His fight brought a lot of prejudice, a lot of backdrops for the farmers in the territory. And Chico Mendes always fought in a pacific way, but they, the farmers, didn’t like him at all. Chico Mendes always tried to dialogue with all forces. They created the empates, a way of protest pacifically in defense of the forest. But this was making all of them very angry about the threats against their economic interests. So, those empates were the way they found to defend in the forest, all his fight.

When farmers came and buy lands in the forests, those farmers were supported by a local organization called the UDR, the federation of land owners. And Darly Alves, one of the farmers in the territory of this organization, was trying to deforest a large area. And then Chico Mendes fought for more than 90 days with his friends defending this land, stopping deforestation. And this was the main reason why he was killed, to stop deforestation. On December 22nd, it was organized a pistol man, a killer, was hired to kill my father in his house.

AMY GOODMAN: Angela, talk about what your father did. What do rubber tappers do?

ANGELA MENDES: [translated] The rubber mans organized this greatest movement, the empates, a peaceful one, of resistance. In 1970s, the rubber areas, the Native rubber areas, were impacted by major agribusiness companies that were expelling them from their territories. For them not to lose all those areas where they lived, they began to organize those empates. Those rubber mans, they lived more than 100 years in the forest, so they protect these areas together with the original Indigenous peoples. And then, together, they created an alliance of peoples of the forests, Indigenous peoples and the rubber men.

The extractivism meant that they were living there, living from the castaña de Pará. They had the same enemies, the farmers, the men that were stealing the territory from those traditional peoples. So they unite their forces, Indigenous peoples and the extractivist peoples. The farmers had a lot of money, a lot of power. So, the alliance of the peoples of the forest is the way, the solution that they thought that would be possible to defend themselves.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you marched with rubber tappers on Thursday here in Belém, in the gateway to the Amazon. So many environmental activists, like your father, hundreds have been killed since he was assassinated. Talk about the dangers people face who stand up for the environment, right through to COP30, to today.

ANGELA MENDES: [translated] Until today, we have a lot of — in our territory, a lot of people being threatened by these very — the same people: cattle ranchers, agribusiness. They are trying to use the forest as cattle production, for cattle production, and they are defending the interests of agribusiness and the mining companies. But there in Acre, we not have mining in Acre, but the whole Amazon suffers a lot of threats because of those many companies and agribusiness companies. They are coming from ever before for the Amazon. They come here, build their companies, bringing death to the territories, then bringing death for the forests and threatening the peoples of the forests.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about, when Bolsonaro was president and before, his alliance with the ranchers, with the oil companies? And then Lula becomes president. And I’m wondering your assessment of President Lula. Are rubber tappers, are Indigenous people any safer? And what is the Chico Mendes Committee calling for, Angela Mendes?

ANGELA MENDES: [translated] Lula was always — when my father was killed in Acre, Lula was friends with my father. And because Lula came from the working class, he understood very well the importance of my father’s fight for my father and his friends.

My feeling today is that the setbacks, how the negative things that the Bolsonaro government did, were too deep, were very profound. And today, we have a Congress, an upper house, extremely right-wing, fascist, and they are leaving the legacy of Bolsonaro, as well. And they are making all they can to stop Lula of making progress in the democratic agenda. The Ministry of Environment, Marina Silva, they are all being put in a very difficult position. This is the approach of our congressmen to make it difficult, to stop the work of President Lula and his team that is prioritizing the protection of the peoples of the forests.

And sometimes we can — we managed to fight and show — you know that we have a reduction of deforestation in Amazon. But this was — this was a victory, but we have still a lot of challenges, because all, every day, we have a new bill being voted in the Congress to trying to invade and make the environmental laws weaker. So, it’s a difficult situation. The threat is against us. All this together, we have a — we had a bill of devastation, the forest devastation, the destruction bill, that made more fragile the environmental laws in Brazil for the licensing to explore the forest. All those laws, the agribusiness is really trying to enter the territories to destroy those territories, to kill the local populations.

Today, we have generations of peoples of the forest, Indigenous peoples. They are contaminated by the mining residues because of the rivers are also poisoned. The population as a whole think they are safe, but the rivers are connected. So, we know that if the rivers should be jammed, the whole people should be worried, as we also know that defend the forest is something — is not something just for the people that lives in the forest. We should know that everything that happens in the forest are connected to everything else that happens in the world. If we are in the city, we should be worried about the peoples in the forest, and vice versa. But this barrier is still there. We share the same oxygen. We are in the same home.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about why this brings tears to your eyes, Angela.

ANGELA MENDES: [translated] Yeah, well, I am very sad, and I cry, because as 37 years ago, when my father was killed, I still live today seeing women, who are leading and as leaderships in their territories, being killed in a very cruel way. The feeling is that we are never able to get out of this violence that really marks people’s lives and families, and we have so many things to deal with.

AMY GOODMAN: Thousands of people, particularly Indigenous people, local people, have been marching here in Belém. Many of them wear your father’s image on their T-shirt. He’s become a symbol like Che Guevara. And I’m wondering at this point, while there is so much at stake: What gives you hope?

ANGELA MENDES: [translated] What gives me hope is to know, is that we now have today a youth movement, a youth that is very conscious about their role. I know that my daughter, who is here in the COP, dreams and wanted to continue the fight of my father. Every year since he was killed, we organized the Chico Mendes Week, where we’re having the youth working, that the legacy of his work continues.

AMY GOODMAN: Angela Mendes, the daughter of the Brazilian rubber tapper and labor leader Chico Mendes, assassinated in 1988. He fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest and the Indigenous people who live there. We spoke to Angela Mendes at the U.N. climate summit in Belém, Brazil, last week. This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.