Inside Brazil’s Wild West

Al Jazeera Correspondent - The Crying Forest

Many others have met a similar fate in recent years as a battle has raged between the activists who want to protect the rainforest from deforestation and the loggers who stand to gain from its destruction [Al Jazeera]

Al Jazeera(***)s Gabriel Elizondo went to meet the families of the murdered activists and to ask: What hope is there of saving the Amazon if death is the price you pay for trying to defend it? [Al Jazeera]

Jose and Maria had lived in a settlement that was created in 1997 as part of a government land reform programme. Pieces of land on the 22,000 hectare site were set aside for impoverished Brazilians who it was hoped would make a living from the forest by harvesting its nuts rather than from cutting it down [Al Jazeera]

The settlement was intended as an example of sustainable development. But Jose and Maria faced a challenge in persuading other residents, when faced with financial hardship and little government support, not to sell their land to ranchers or allow the loggers to move in [Al Jazeera]

The river where the settlement is located was once flanked by virgin rainforest. But the arrival of loggers, cattle ranchers and charcoal producers has seen much of it disappear [Al Jazeera]

Jose and Maria faced death threats from those who believed that their activism stood in the way of the opportunity to make a quick profit [Al Jazeera]

And in a notoriously lawless corner of Brazil - with some of the highest homicide rates in the country - they immediately became targets. Some of their relatives say that despite the death threats they received, Jose and Maria did not receive any protection [Al Jazeera]

Some relatives are now so afraid that they too will be targetted that they have abandoned their homes and are living in hiding [Al Jazeera]