"My dream is to see this entire forest conserved because we know it can guarantee the future of all the people who live in it…" (Chico Mendes). This quote is the embodiment of what a conservationist truly is. Francisco 'Chico' Alvez Mendes Filho was born into a Rubber Tapping family, in December of 1944. According to Professor Armstrong, based in Illinois State University, Rubber Tapping is the process of harvesting latex by slicing into a tree and peeling the bark away. Through The Brazilian Amazon Rainforest readers learn that until the year 1970 Rubber Estate owners would not allow the workers, who were as young as nine years old, to become educated (Luiz Barbosa 115). This means that Chico Mendes began work as a Rubber Tapper before he could read or write. It is obvious today that the owners of the Rubber Tapping estates were withholding education to prevent workers from realizing the manipulations of their employers.…show more content… Mendes met a man who was a political dissent from the Brazilian communist movement moving through acre. This man would eventually teach Chico how to read and advise him to find and join a union (Luiz Barbosa 116). It would seem Mendes took this stranger's words to heart because he tried to begin unifying the workers in 1968. His initial attempt did not come to fruition, but it would not be the last attempt Mendes ever made. This attempt likely never received the required attention because the political climate of the time was very totalitarian. The workers at this point still did not understand how deep the manipulations by the estate owners
