In Brazil, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva paid tribute to environmentalist Chico Mendes on Monday on the twentieth anniversary of his murder. Mendes was one of the world’s most prominent defenders of the Amazon Rainforest. He was murdered on December 22, 1988 by ranchers opposed to his activism. Since his death, more than 1,100 activists and other rain forest defenders have been killed in Brazil. A new study by Brazil’s Catholic Land Commission has found that hundreds of Brazilian human rights and environmental activists still face the threat of assassination because of their fight against a coalition of loggers, farmers and cattle ranchers.